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Who Laughs Last 


l 




Gju, 


V i ' < g 


Uk J 4^ 


By 

Ashton Hillie rs 

ii 

Author of “As It Happened/’ “The Master Girl/’ etc. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 
New York and London 
Ube fmicfterbocfcer press 
1912 





/V' 

N 


Copyright, 1912 

BY 

G. P PUTNAM’S SONS 


1£be Knickerbocker press, Pew Jgork 


CONTENTS 


chapter page 

I. — Billy Matriculates i 

II. — Confidences 20 

III. — Some Introductions ... 26 

IV. — Sent Down . . . . . 42 

V. — How He Took It . . . .55 

VI. — At Hornbeams — On One Side of the 

Baize Door 69 

VII. — At Hornbeams — Upon the Other Side 

of the Same Door ... 82 

VIII. — Side-Lights 91 

IX. — Chances of the Road . . . 100 

X. — Developments at the Base . . 118 

XI. — Mr. Samuel’s Predicament . .134 

XII. — An Eremite of the Rock . . 139 

XIII. — Kidnapped 148 

XIV. — By the Waters of Babylon . 159 

XV. — Innocent Eavesdropping . .172 

iii 


IV 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI. — Billy as a Man of Action . 183 

XVII. — A Prophet Without Honour . 192 

XVIII. — The Troubles of a Conscien- 
tious Trustee . . .198 

XIX. — Sir Faint Heart . 208 

XX. — Complications .... 224 

XXI. — Billy in the Thick of It . . 239 

XXII. — Still Thicker . . .251 

XXIII. — Billy Scores .... 266 

XXIV. — The Raiding of Casa Bolivar . 284 

XXV. — The Troubles of a Righteous 

Man ..... 307 

XXVI. — A Windfall and Its Results 317 

XXVII. — Billy Negotiates . . .331 

XXVIII. — Farewell to the Midi . . 338 

XXIX. — Promotion 346 

XXX. — Palgrave 361 

XXXI. — Tightening Threads . . . 373 

XXXII. — Billy Speaks .... 386 

XXXIII. — A Lee-Shore .... 400 

XXXIV. — Diverse Men, Diverse Ideals . 412 


Contents 


v 


CHAPTER 

XXXV. — Personality Appeals . 
XXXVI. — Love to the Rescue . 


PAGE 
. 418 

• 430 





























*• 






•• 


/ 






























WHO LAUGHS LAST 


CHAPTER I 


BILLY MATRICULATES 


OWARDS the end of March, when east winds 



have lulled and the farmer has cleaned his 


land and drilled his barley, and would rather you did 
not ride across it, there comes a day reminiscent of 
February, restorative to lost scent, mollifying rock- 
hard roadsides, and winding-up the hunting season 


nobly. 


On such a day a year or two ago, a day still spoken 
of by men who ride with the Brake, that famous little 
pack had the best chance of the season and the worst 
of luck. 

They had met at twelve, for foxes were getting 
scarce, and had drawn until two without getting a 
whimper; it began to look like finishing the season 
with a blank. The Master bethought him of Penn 
Wood, a neutral covert upon the border of his country, 
which, being let to a London shooting-tenant, not 
too well-affected, it behoved him to visit, if only to 
give the keeper an opportunity of earning his find- 
money. 

X I 


2 


Who Laughs Last 

The field knew that it was an off-chance. There 
are never cubs in Penn. The place had been drawn 
blank twice that season, so, whilst hounds were run- 
ning through it, flasks, sandwiches, and the latest mis- 
doings of the Government came under discussion. 

As everybody who has hunted knows it is just on 
such an occasion as this that the tricksy genius who 
presides over the luck of hunting interposes. Yet, 
next time, no wiser, we shall be found conversing 
as inattentively as ever. 

Forty men and half a dozen women laughed and 
chattered in groups strung out along the upper side 
of the covert, making too much noise for sport, 
whilst at the lower side something was going on which 
they wotted not of, yet which permanently affected 
the after-lives of two of that company. 

And these two were not among the talkers. The 
girl in the well-cut habit, carrying herself like one who 
has done some riding, and bearing aloft a mass of 
chestnut hair, was silent because she knew nobody 
apart from the heavy woman beside her. The young 
fellow who had dismounted to ease the back of his 
five-year-old had drawn clear of the crowd, partly 
because he did n’t understand politics, and had a 
vague idea that this lot was much about the same 
as the other lot, being the same breed, y’ know after 
all, and that it was rot to keep on ragging fellows 
you would be jolly glad to meet at somebody’s house, 
y’ know; and partly from a sense of sport. He was 
out to hunt, and if you keep jabbering all the time 
you not only miss your chance of getting away with 
hounds, but you don’t see things. “Things” being 
birds, animals, the first yellow butterfly of the year, 
anything that lived and moved, for this young fellow 


3 


Billy Matriculates 

with the straight back and wooden face, and some- 
thing of the military set-up, was a bom naturalist. 

With this in his mind Mr. Wilbraham de Savigny- 
Conyers Winterbourne (“Billy” to his friends), sub- 
lieutenant in the East Wessex Regiment at present 
quartered at Southcot Camp, Aldershot Military 
District, pottered off along the covert- side listening 
and looking, his mare Kathleen following him like 
a dog, for the two were friends. 

He caught glimpses of the Master, a gentleman 
huntsman, a slow-moving spot of colour crossing a 
ride over sheets of blue dog-violet and poesies of prim- 
rose, mechanically emitting the weird cries which are 
supposed to encourage questing hounds, still farther, 
and invisible, he perceived the presence of a hunt 
servant by the crack of a whip and a voice raised in 
rebuke. There rose the sounds of a hound in trouble. 
The Master had turned and was coming towards his 
field, he was close to the fence, when, far away, down* 
wind, the pack gave tongue, a brief, eager, and general 
cry as suddenly hushed. 

The Master with horn at lip was in act of leaving 
covert, his horse set his foot in a rabbit-bury and 
rolled upon him. First Whip was watching the wrong 
comer for a view, Second Whip taking a puppy out 
of a trap(!). Of the field two, and two only, heard 
hounds open, of these one said “Riot,” and finished 
his flask, the other remarked that it might be, but 
rather thought he would go and see, upon which he 
jumped a bank-and-wattle into covert, laid himself 
along his mare’s neck, and slipped away through the 
high slop like a rabbit. 

“Winterbourne ridin’ his own line as usual, but, 
where ’s the sense?” asked the rest. “He is bound 


4 


Who Laughs Last 

to come back to us. No fox ever broke at the bottom 
of Penn ( ’T would be a bit of a pill if one did !). Does 
the man know where he is? ” Older men remembered 
that the lower side was “impossible,” a big, over- 
grown blackthorn with the brook beyond and a boggy 
landing; a county boundary ; a fence with a reputation 
for never having been taken. Every hunt has a few 
of the sort. 

Young Winterbourne either did not know, or was 
willing to risk it. He was of the breed who go and 
find out, and three minutes later, plastered to the 
arm-pits, and with water in his boots, was enjoying 
the spin of his life with but one fence between his 
mare’s nose and the stems of the racing pack which 
fleeted silently ahead like a flock of rock-birds over 
the sea, pressing and jostling for the lead without one 
straggler. The marvel of it! that compact sheet of 
dappled backs sweeping before him as if drawn by 
some invisible cable, swaying rhythmically by turns 
to left and to right of its true course as though blindly 
obeying some natural law, and all the while tossing 
the acres behind them as easily as homing pigeons! 
It was all his own, not a soul in sight, one of the rarest 
of human pleasures, and such as is not conceded to 
funk or bungler. Come, tell me, ye who have lived, 
what life hath to match such minutes as these? The 
deflowering of a virgin aiguille is too tedious, too 
exhausting for pure bliss; the conquest of a hostile 
public meeting may equal it, when the hot, terrible 
minutes of interruption are past, and brute clamour 
sinks to attention, and attention melts to assent, and 
assent flashes out in prompt peals of applause. Yet 
men who have tasted both give it to the run. Young 
Winterbourne was under the impression that he had 


5 


Billy Matriculates 

led at an enormous blind fence at the start, and had 
chanced a dozen nasty ones since. He had not picked 
his places, but had taken them as they came, going 
smack at them, and putting his trust in Providence, 
once at least with his heart in his mouth, for the fellow 
was no fool. He was clean out of his country, had 
lost the points of the compass, nor knew within five 
parishes where he was, nor whither he was going, nor 
dared to think what might be upon the other side of 
the next fence. Let it be granted that the youngster 
was of the right age and weight, and was feeling 
particularly fit, and, what is all to the point, was upon 
perfect terms with his five-year-old Irish filly, bought 
out of a drove, made and schooled by himself (one 
of the best occupations in the world for a youth with 
hands, time, and temper). If it were his day it was 
Kathleen’s too, the creature was enjoying herself enor- 
mously. This would be the making of her, if — haunt- 
ing thought! — it did n’t last the one field too long. 
How beautifully she had answered to his unarmed heel 
and lifted voice at that hairy black horror at the start! 
Heaven only knew how she had recovered from the 
plunge, slither, and scramble of landing ! He believed 
that she had put down not less than six spare feet in 
succession when the bank broke away. How she 
had worked to get upon any sort of terms with the 
flying pack! How she had come back into her bridle 
at asking, steadying at the one bit of plough, tight- 
ening-up to throw herself at her fences, the blind ones, 
those with an “if” upon the other side of them, and 
how, when again she had found firm turf beneath her, 
she had sunk away from her rider and laid herself out 
as flat as a greyhound, making the wind roar in his 
ears, until, lo ! there were the hounds again, and a 


6 


Who Laughs Last 

gate, at which she consented, after some small pro- 
test, to look before flying with the beautiful, deerlike 
“lep” of your Wexford thoro’bred, her fore-feet tucked 
so tightly beneath her that horse-shoe and stirrup- 
iron clinked in mid-air! Twenty minutes of it, think! 
and but one fence which had called for creeping. All 
the glory of pace and the pride of difficult and sole 
achievement, and then the check, first and final. 
Scent gave out in the middle of a pasture! Comment 
is needless. Hounds could not carry it another yard, 
nor hit off the line to right, nor to left, nor forrard. 
These be phenomena which set a man ’s head wagging 
and call for tobacco. Some men would have sworn, 
or interfered with hounds. Young Winterbourne did 
neither; possessing his soul in patience, he sate the 
throbbing Kathleen, watching the pack make its casts 
until the last hope faded and hounds came back to 
him with heads up. Then the hollow, far-away rattle 
of horse-hooves upon roads grew louder; human voices 
invaded his silence ; the first of the hot anxious strag- 
glers found him dismounted, rubbing the veined, 
translucent ears of his comrade, talking the run over 
to her, the hounds around them, rolling and yawning, 
a privileged couple, Yokel and Bellman, answering 
to their names and sedately accepting sandwiches. 
The field came up by twos and threes, lastly the crowd, 
perspiring, jealous, incredulous, jovial, or snappy, ac- 
cording to temperament, babbling of hard luck, im- 
possible places, and what not; some full of questions, 
some silent, one at least upon the watch for an open- 
ing, waiting for the safe moment to make his boast. 
Young Winterbourne, silent now, and a little too 
grave for a fortunate boy who had done what forty 
men had failed to do, did not traverse the braggart’s 


7 


Billy Matriculates 

claim, nor prefer his own, until a circle of civil doubt 
described itself around him. * ‘ Look here, Billy, J ervis 
is sayin ’ that he rode the line from Penn here, every 
yard of it, y’ know, and that nobody else was in it 
y’ know. That ’s so, Jervis? But Boyd here says 
you were the only man with the hounds when he 
came up, and nobody else in sight. Eh, Boyd? — 
Well, now ?” 

The youngster sucked twice at his cigar before 
removing it, and then seemed in no haste to express 
an opinion, and when he spoke it was with the impas- 
sive, non-committal tone of an older man. 

“I did not see Mr. Jervis, but, then ” 

“Well, man?” 

“I was n’t looking about for people, you see. I 
was watching hounds, and we had all our work to keep 
anywhere near them: marking our fences, and all 
that. ... Of course Mr. Jervis might have been 
somewhere, there was plenty of room, but ...” 

“But you have n’t eyes in the back of your head?” 

“Oh, I did n’t say Mr. Jervis was behind me. I 
don’t think he was, at least not in sight when the 
hounds’ heads went up. I saw Boyd come up, and 
Makins; and Peplow, there, I think he was in the 
first batch . B u t J ervis 

“Well, if the man was n’t behind you, nor in front 
of you, where was he? It is a bit of a conundrum. 
You see the difficulty, Jervis? Where’s Jervis?” 

But Mr. Jervis had faded off into the rain, setting 
up his collar, and more urgent matters pressed to the 
front. A red-faced, gloomy First Whip arrived. 
“ ’Spose none o’ you genelmen didn’t know as the 
Master had broke the small-bone of his near leg? 
Kildare rolled on top of him — grut, over-grown fool 


8 


Who Laughs Last 

of a hoss, clumsy as they make ’em: never did care 
for they seventeen-oners, fifteen-three is size enow 
for this country. But, what ’s to do now, genelmen? ” 

Who should speak the word? The Deputy Master, 
a financial buttress of the hunt, had stayed back with 
his injured friend. Hounds were six-and-a-half miles 
by road from the edge of the Brake country, and eight 
from any covert which they could draw without spoil- 
ing their next hunting day. Collars were going up 
in earnest, sopped buckskins acquiring that corpse- 
tint which gives a man a cold to see, gloves were 
soaked and noses blue. Those flasks had spent 
themselves in vain. The Whip remembered his last 
attack of “ flu ” and appealed mutely 

The largest subscriber, or the man with most 
initiative, turned in his saddle and ran an eye over 
the circle of lengthening faces. “What d’ ye think, 
gentlemen? Should we be justified in chucking it 
for the day? — eh, Will?” 

“Thanky, genelmen, kennels it is,” replied the 
First Whip, touching his cap, and that was the end 
of it. 

The weather worsened, the field was already mov- 
ing, men in cutaways wishing they wore frocks, men 
in frocks thinking of aprons. The last of the laggards 
turned up in time to find the day’s sport over, 
among them a heavy-weight lady scolding a small 
groom, anxious as to the whereabouts of something 
or somebody. 

Young Winterbourne swung up into a wet saddle 
and shook his reins. A handful of keen men still 
lingered, wanted to hear more, riding at his elbows, 
or within speech. The run was coming back to him, 
the fences arranging themselves in some sort of se- 


9 


Billy Matriculates 

quence. It was proposed to take it the reverse way, 
using gates of course, so as not to annoy the farmers ; 
it would settle the bounder ’s claim once for all. With- 
in sight of Penn Wood their guide drew rein. 

“You ’ll find the County Fence, or whatever they 
call it, down in that bottom. My mare has cast a 
shoe, and thinks she has had enough of it, so I ’ll not 
be keeping you back. ” 

There were warm good-afternoons accorded to the 
quiet, dull-faced young infantryman. He had made 
out his — or rather their case to the letter. His marks, 
and no others, were plainly imprinted across those 
miles of grass, and several of his fences had proved 
quite too formidable for cold blood. They watched 
him lob off toward the gate which let him into his 
homeward road and went cautiously across the bog 
to inspect the never-before-attempted place. It re- 
paid inspection, they picked their way back to sounder 
ground, one of them making a mental resolution to 
bid fifty guineas for the mare by post. 

“ Funny thing for a fellow of that stamp, so cold 
and — er — with so little to say for himself, to ride a 
line like that on his own,’’ mused the philosopher 
of the party. The rest agreed that “ you would not 
think he had it in him : that stake-and -bound out of 
the plough on to the grass took a lot of doing; a 
fellow’s heart had need to be as big as a bullock’s at 
a place like that; goin’ first, too, and with no one 
cornin’ up behind to say, ‘ Are you goin’ to have it, 
sir? or — ’ ” Men laughed appreciatively. Lieutenant 
Winterbourne had matriculated. Said the one grey 
moustache of the party, a light-weight major-general 
who rode like a subaltern: “ There ’s race in it. You 
fellows don’t remember that man’s mother. Went 


IO 


Who Laughs Last 

like the deuce, took everything as it came. Lord! 
The only time I ever saw that water-jump taken was 
when she took it. . . . Pounded the field, she did! 
Extraordinary fine woman she was then. Wonder 
where she is now. ” 

The youngster was wet to the skin, but had not 
mentioned the circumstance. At the first smithy, 
which was also an inn, he gruelled Kathleen and drank 
hot tea whilst a temporary shoe was being fitted, 
then, for that strip of country is all pine- wood and 
heather, and one stretch of white road is uncommonly 
like another, asked his way and pushed on faster. 
Presently recognising a landmark he ventured upon 
a short cut through covert, already too wet to take 
farther damage from the showers of big drops dis- 
charged by every bough he shook. In the wet, dark 
heart of it something flapped off the ground under 
Kathleen’s nose, something which arose buoyantly but 
fell again, as if with a broken wing, a woodcock ! The 
good mare swerved to the pressure of the rein upon 
her neck, checked, and stood as her rider swung down 
and released her. He was kneeling. “By George! 
four , and what beauties! and don’t they match these 
oak-leaves to a miracle?” He hovered above his 
find, a naturalist glorying in a species new to him. 
The sight filled him with pure pleasure; none would 
have thought his face deficient in expression at that 
moment. At a sound, or the vibration of the sodden 
earth, he glanced up, hooves were approaching, dulled 
by the falling rain. He sprang up and strode across 
the nest, throwing up his hands, and but just in time, 
for a horse, ridden at a canter, was almost over him 
before he could stop it. Its rider, a lady, begged his 
pardon rather breathlessly, had not seen, could not 


II 


Billy Matriculates 

have known, thought he was well ahead. The young- 
ster apologised in turn, had had no idea that any one 
was behind him, the rain made such a noise. He 
explained, a little bashfully, his reason for dismount- 
ing, showed the nest to the lady, who, craning over 
her pommel, smilingly interested, pronounced it the 
cunningest thing she had ever seen. Did he collect? 
Was it rare? Would he take it? Winterbourne rue- 
fully admitted that he had no means of getting such 
large eggs safely away; must return with a box in 
the morning. His eye roved as he spoke, was taking 
bearings. One more look, a lingering one, and he 
had bidden the treasures good-bye, and stood aside 
holding Kathleen’s bit that the lady might pass. But 
the lady, she was young, say twenty, hesitated. 
“She is quiet,” said Winterbourne, reassuringly, 
backing into a bush to leave the narrow ride clear. 
“Oh, thanks, it is n’t that. . . . Won’t you mount ? . . . 
I . . . really — I was following you” — a little laugh — 
“I may as well confess it; I have lost my hostess and 
her man, and have not the faintest idea where I am. ” 
A jolly, natural sort of girl, this; she made her 
admission with such simplicity that Winterbourne, 
who thought he did not like girls, was unconsciously 
touched, a man could have been no straighter. He 
looked, she looked, the two young people regarded 
one another with more interest than the man, at 
least, had evinced since the unwelcome apparition 
of lady rider had threatened his trophies. What 
the girl saw was a well-built youth in an extraordinary 
state of mud, a melton frock which might once have 
been black, discoloured breeches, battered hat, a 
person who was beyond question a gentleman, pleas- 
ant-voiced, but nowise remarkable for his looks. 


12 


Who Laughs Last 

Young Winterbourne, at this time of his life, made 
small appeal to the eye. Not that he was plain- 
featured, he was not even as remarkable as that 
comes to, the lad — for he was scarcely arrived at 
manhood, being the sort who unduly defers maturity 
— was just one of the great crowd of well-bred, well- 
tailored youth turned out by our public schools, who 
have the misfortune to look five-and-twenty-per-cent. 
less than their value. Without a salient feature in 
his face, or any play of expression, he carried himself 
quietly and went about his duty or his pleasure with 
the gravity of an undertaker on a wet day, reprimand- 
ing a dirty recruit without raising his voice, carrying his 
bat to the pavilion at the close of an inter-regimental 
match, ninety-eight not out, without a smile or a 
word of regret for having missed his century. This 
was his theory of form — whence derived, or upon 
whom modelled, goodness alone knows! — the theory 
of the Sixth, prefects in posse , to address all men in 
the same level, clear, unemotional accent, lam a fag 
without temper, accept rebuke from a tutor without 
resentment or self-excuse, meet the eye of the Head, 
or of an Archbishop, or of Royalty Itself without a 
tremor, never to hurry, never to buck, never to be 
rattled. A woman of the world may find this sort 
amusing; it makes less appeal to a girl. The girl 
upon the hot, fretting horse, there, sidling and boring 
among the hazels, perceived that her companion was 
a dull, preoccupied fellow. She could have given no 
grounds for her appreciation, but she knew at a glance 
that there was nothing in him, and, worse still, that 
she was less than nothing to him. The Boy took no 
stock of the Girl, being otherwise engaged (he was 
wishing her at Bath that he might stow those eggs 


13 


Billy Matriculates 

in his hat) ; the Girl, being not in the least engaged, 
and physically speaking, although his age to a week, 
five years his senior, could not help but look him over 
with the innocent, natural interest which a young 
woman takes in the young man of her species where- 
soever she meets him. In so doing she neither ac- 
cused, nor excused herself, the attitude was habitual, 
unconscious, she was made so, and there is the truth 
of it. There are women who without a second look 
at one of their sex will tell you everything she had on, 
where she bought it, and what it cost her. There 
are others, the marrying women, who take in the face 
of a man at a flash, Nature so wills it. He is good 
or bad, dull or amusing, theirs or not theirs, as the 
case may be. They may not, and probably do not, 
discuss their discoveries, even to themselves, but, 
such is, and such, from their days of curls and short 
frocks, has been their preoccupation. All which was 
worse than Sanskrit to young Winterbourne at the 
time I am telling about, for it was not merely foreign 
but repellent. He had never even fancied himself 
in love with anybody, no, not with a lady fifteen 
years his senior, nor had he been lonely, nor felt that 
empty, restless, vague sensation which drives youth 
forth to seek a woman’s friendship. Man and man’s 
sports and duties filled him up to the eyes, hence whilst 
the girl had noted his scratched face, his unmodelled 
English nose, grave lip, and square chin, he, for his 
part, was thinking she was a jolly enough sort, but 
rather upon the laughy side, not recognising the signs 
of a creature out of school, enjoying a day of novel 
experience and brimming to the red lips of her with the 
delightful off-for-the-holiday sensations, which we of 
an elder generation knew, but which the schoolboy 


14 


Who Laughs Last 

and schoolgirl of to-day seem to be wholly ignorant 
of, so delightful are their lessons and their masters. 
Moreover, being what he was, this youngster was 
incapable of recognising in the face beneath the sodden 
bowler hat, with its clear, down-glancing spaniel eyes 
and a wisp of chestnut hair plastered by wet down 
upon the shoulder of a dark blue habit-body, one of 
Mother Nature’s marrying faces. (She has many, and 
of many types, or men were lost indeed.) Such faces, 
however diversely framed, coloured, and modelled, 
are signed by the Great Artificer for such of us as 
can read. We look and recognise that this is no 
artist, nor authoress, nor musician, nor agitator, but 
a Woman, one with potentialities of wifehood and 
motherhood pulsing within her. She could never 
plan a problem novel, paint an impressionist picture, 
electrify an Albert Hall audience, break the windows 
of a Prime Minister, no, nor kick the shins of a poor 
patient policeman, but she could face you across a 
lamp-lit table and make sunshine within a little 
suburban villa, although a yellow particular hung low 
outside, and you had come back from the City with 
a cold upon your chest, and the feeling that things 
in your own line were going to the deuce. Women of 
these types are the most precious asset of a people. 
When they fail all fails, and that nation is doomed 
beyond appeal, aye, though in its last century it may 
cast up a thousand poetesses, female artists, petti- 
coated lecturers, and flat, gaunt, hawk-nosed Alpinists. 
Young Winterbourne knew nothing of all this. What 
does a boy of twenty know of what most intimately 
concerns the future of his race? In so far as the 
girl sat her horse squarely and kept her hands low, 
she pleased him. 4 He saw, too, that she wanted a 


15 


Billy Matriculates 

guide; it was a nuisance, of course, but he took up 
the duty tacitly, being the fellow he was. The track 
widened, he made room for his companion to ride 
beside him (still silently marking his line for to- 
morrow’s return journey). The lady talked, un- 
conscious of his inattention. “I am afraid I hardly 
played the game, do you know. But it seemed too 
stupid to follow that crowd along the roads. I really 
did believe I saw hounds (they turned out to be some 
calves that had got loose), and the place was quite a 
little place, and this thing took hold. I should have 
waited for my hostess, of course. I thought she was 
behind me. Where she got to I can’t imagine. (She 
has her man — he is only a boy, you know, but he 
counts.) It was awfully jolly. I had six little fences 
and kept going until we were pounded (I think that ’s 
the word?). Anyhow, he would not face the thorns, 
though I put him at it three times and talked to him ” 
(laughing). “And there I was, not a creature to ask. 
I tried to find a way round, and got into these coverts, 
and really I must have been riding in rings, I ’ve 
come to the same cross-rides again and again. Most 
distracting!” 

“It is not in the Brake country, you see, so you 
would n’t know it. I think they call it Round Wood; 
a puzzling place for a stranger,” said Winterbourne. 
He knew where she was bound for by this, knew her 
hostess by name, and was congratulating himself upon 
the prospect of getting rid of her at the Lodge without 
going more than half a mile out of his road. The 
lady was above herself, and he a good listener, if 
unenthusiastic. That her chatter began to amuse 
him came as a surprise, for he was unimpressionable, 
and as a man’s coldness is sure to be reciprocated, 


i6 


Who Laughs Last 

women let him alone. (With men he was popular; 
he was forever doing small kindnesses to which he 
never subsequently referred.) She was talking again. 
Had it been a good run? Had he seen anything of it? 
He admitted having been in it up to a point. “You 
took a toss? — Came down? What fun ! Did you lose 
your horse? You certainly are awfully wet!” She 
laughed lightly and ran on, jumping to her conclusions 
and constructing a theory of her own to account for his 
plight and supposed low spirits. “It isn’t all joy 
being thrown out. I have learnt so much. I am 
utterly green at this sort of thing. Indeed it is my 
first attempt to ride to foxhounds.” He stared. 
“You see I have spent a good deal of time out of 
England. We had to live on the Karoo for dear 
mamma’s sake.” Her voice took on a tender in- 
flection: Winterbourne, whose mother was his one 
soft spot, nodded understandingly. He was sure of 
his bearings now; here was the boundary ride, and 
the gate with the hollies and the cross-roads and hand- 
post, he could pick those marks up in a fog. And 
lo ! by the hand-post was a stout woman upon a heavy 
horse rebuking the smallest and meekest of grooms. 
She interrupted her lecture with a delighted outcry, 
“Millicent! — child! wherever have you been? I have 
ridden miles and miles, and have been too distressed 
for words! You have not had a fall? When I saw 
you take those frightful fences I almost screamed. 
I assure you I was terrified — horrified! Is Solon all 
right too? You are sure? How fortunate!” 

With many words and laughter the friends fell 
to explaining what each had done, said, and felt. 
Every detail and cause of the separation was can- 
vassed and explained, save the natural difficulty which 


Billy Matriculates 


17 


eleven stone, with neither heart nor hands, upon a 
half-bred, experiences in keeping touch with eager 
eight-stone upon a lighter and keener animal. Young 
Winterbourne was outside this; they would have 
brought him into it presently, but his duty was done, 
and at the hand-post their roads diverged. He drew 
rein, raising his hat. Hostess and guest bowed. 

“Most kind of you, Mr. Winterbourne, I am 
sure. . . . Cannot we prevail upon you to come in, 
just for. . . ?” 

Gentle speech and smiles, but the boy's grave, dirty 
face was not encouraging, he really was too awfully 
wet, you know. Kathleen was fidgeting; he was 
gone, and had ridden a mile before he found that he 
had not caught the lady’s name. He jogged on think- 
ing her over; seat and hands appealed to him, her hair 
did not — at least, he thought it did not, but was he so 
sure? Considered as red it repelled, considered as 
hair and worn as she wore it, it did . . . fairly. 
The girl had touched his life for the moment, and 
passed out of it as a swallow dips the surface of a river. 
She had looked at him and passed; had his personal- 
ity impressed ever so lightly this chance-met com- 
panion of half-an-hour? She would have laughed out 
clearly and heart-whole at the idea. Like floating 
feathers upon a pool they had drifted together, like 
floating feathers they had been blown apart. The 
moment had not favoured them, for as it happened, 
their appearances and idiosyncrasies had not been at 
their happiest. Circumstance had depressed the one 
and uplifted the other. To the girl the man seemed 
stupid; the man thought the girl gassy; each formed 
a slightly unfavourable estimate of the other, too slight 
to be put into words or committed to memory. So 


1 8 Who Laughs Last 

are we humans made, with such imperfect faculty for 
our instrument do we sound our ways across life’s cross- 
currents, depths, and shoals; so little do we appreciate 
what it behoves us to know, and what concerns us, 
yes, and generations unborn, so nearly ! 

Dusk was falling when, after having seen to Kath- 
leen’s comforts, the boy sought his quarters. Upon 
the table lay a note, a letter, and a telegram. He tore 
the buff envelope first and read : 

11 Lieutenant W. Winterbourne, 

East Wessex Regiment, Southcot Camp. 

“Shall expect you in bank parlour at ten to-morrow 
morning Thursday certain write acknowledging this. 

4 4 Winterbourne . ’ ’ 

44 That is Samuel all over!” he laughed. 44 The 
genuine half-brother touch! What is the fuss to be 
about this time?” 

The second envelope was from the Post-Office 
returning one of his own to 

Mrs. Winterbourne, 

i 15 Albemarle Crescent, 
Cheltenham, 

and was marked 11 Gone away , no address .” The 
recipient turned it in his hand frowning, and what- 
ever light the day’s adventure had shed upon his 
face faded off it. He took the third note in pencil, 
delivered by messenger, and read: 

44 Dear Winterbourne, — I am afraid I made a 
poor show of gratitude. Fact is I could hardly trust 


19 


Billy Matriculates 

myself to speak. You don’t know, you lucky dog, 
what your help has meant to me. I shall never forget 
it. — Yours, 

“V. Palgrave.” 

Winterbourne read this through a second time be- 
fore burning it. “ Poor old Pal! He must have been 
in a mess. Too bad of his people altogether.” 


CHAPTER II 


CONFIDENCES 

M EANWHILE, how had things gone with the 
ladies whom we left at the cross-roads? 

“May I come in? — Oh, good! What a jolly fire!” 
Mrs. Bohun, in deshabille, shuffled in laughing, fol- 
lowed by a maid bearing a tray. “Put it there, 
Parker — anywhere — on the bed. We will wait upon 
ourselves. You have bathed, dear? I hope the 
water was really hot, and that you used ammonia. 
But, at your age, I did n’t know what stiffness meant 
after riding. It seems we missed a good run. Little 
Ward heard a second horseman say that it was the 
fastest thing and the best line the Brake have had 
for three seasons, but only one man saw much of it. 
I wonder who it was? How jealous the rest will 
be! That boy you picked up had been clean out of 
it by the look of him. A Shotter; I hope I had his 
name right. It is Winter something, I ’m sure. He 
seemed a gentleman. Was he nice? You get all 
sorts in the army now. I expect they always did. 
To hear my aunts talk you ’d think purchase used 
to keep the bounders out, but I don’t believe it. 
Some exclusive regiments still keep up their status 
by making mess-bills costly; the Rifles, for instance, 


Confidences 


21 


but I don’t find the men when I meet them any nicer 
than the Gunners and Engineers. ” The elder woman 
had poured and handed, and now rattled on inconse- 
quently, sipping and nibbling, extending draped limbs 
to the glow luxuriously, perfect physical well-being 
heightened by the proximity of the silent, lissom 
grace of her young companion. 

“My dear, what hair! May I? Why, you can 
sit upon it! I ’d give a year’s income for such a 
feature!” running plump, be-ringed fingers through 
lengths of dark chestnut tresses, lifting a mass to 
allow her to imprint a kiss upon the alabaster white- 
ness of a warm nape. The girl flushed, smiling. The 
elder lady kissed again. “Get up, please, yes, stand 
just so, lift your arms and let the folds hang, now draw 
them closer. Ah!” — a warm sigh — “child, you are 
a beauty. I had not done you justice. There is 
certainly a future for you, somewhere. And there 
is — nobody?” peering into the clear candour of the 
brown eyes. “What luck! Then there is the fairer 
field for somebody. If la belle mbre can’t, or won’t 
assist, come back to me and let me put my wits at 
your service.” 

“Oh, Mrs. Bohun ” 

“Call me Marion.” 

“May I? How nice! I have been longing to. 
You know I have no woman to . . . love me,” whis- 
pering and frowning into the glow of the fire. “ Dear 
papa is awfully sweet when Mrs. Wentworth is out 
of the way and he can let himself go. But he is a 
man after all, and I ’ve simply nobody, no aunts, 
no cousins. It is rather hard luck. Only her, and 
she. ...” 

“She is like that?” 


22 


Who Laughs Last 

“Very much like that. It is failure all round." 

“My dear, how did it begin? Who was she? 
Where did you first run against her?” 

“ Oh, it was a muddle. After dear mamma’s death, 
you know, papa was frightfully morbid and always 
upon the move. Nothing suited him for long. We 
tried New Zealand, he was miserably hipped and 
lonely. I really did my best, Marion, but what use 
is a daughter? He met her on board ship. Dear 
papa — just, merely — you know how people do become 
acquainted? She dressed well and is a clever talker, 
oh, yes, most fascinating. It was between Auckland 
and Melbourne, a small boat, and with a wee saloon 
and next to no passengers that ran. Mrs. Chal- 
loner, as she then was, passed as a widow. I know 
nothing of the late Mr. Challoner, or of his people, 
or hers. I once picked up a letter-back which she 
dropped. It was an old book-mark in a French novel ; 
it was addressed to Miss Palgrave. Of course it may 
not have been addressed to her. She thanked me 
and dropped it overside. That gave me my first im- 
pression. But it came too late. I have never told 
papa. What would be the use? They were married 
at a Melbourne church. The thing was rushed. I 
hate to think about that week. It was painful. I 
shall always blame myself for leaving him so much 
alone.” 

“My dear, it is no use going back upon things. 
You did what seemed best at the time.” 

“Oh, I know! But it has turned out so miserably. 
I could bear it if she were nice to dear papa. Oh, 
he is quite aware of his mistake. He is perfectly 
loyal, you know. But one can see. She is cold and 
off-hand with him, and does things which he disap- 


Confidences 


23 


proves, and keeps him out of it. Backs horses, and 
that sort of thing. There were letters and a sort of 
exposure, and almost a scene. That is why I was 
let come to you. Dear papa said something about 
my needing a change; what he meant was that ex- 
periences of that sort were bad for me, and Mrs. 
Wentworth did n’t want me to witness any more of 
the kind, I should think. . . . Oh, Marion, I know 
I should not have told you this. You can’t do any 
good, and it is poor work giving one’s people away. 
But you made me; you are a dear, so simpatica, and 
I am hideously lonely. One cannot keep it all in, 
all the time; at least, I can’t. ” 

“What a woman!” muttered the elder lady, the 
self-indulgent face taking on lines of real sympathy. 
“ It sounds a bad job, my dear. Your father is com- 
fortably off, as everybody knows, but once a woman 
takes to gambling there is no holding her. It is just 
like drink. The men have some reserve power, some 
of them, and can take a pull at themselves, swear off, 
and stick to it. We cannot. Once round a certain 
point we are done for, back anything no matter what 
the odds, or with whom we bet, so long as we do bet; 
and drink any nastiness, scent, French polish, methy- 
lated (I assure you I ’ve seen it done, horrid!), but 
drink we must, or use the drug-syringe, which is as 
bad; but I should n’t have told you that. But I ’ve 
seen a woman’s shoulder, here — a mass of sores — 
wretched! This is bad for Mr. Wentworth, he isn’t 
strong, you were saying.” 

“Indeed, no! He has a heart. He did it rowing 
up at Cambridge. And all this is the worst thing 
for it. She is so violent, too; but I really must n’t 
tell you any more. It is n’t fair. ” 


24 


Who Laughs Last 

“To me? My dear, I would listen to anything if 
I could do you any good. And scheme anything. 
I am so glad you have taken me in, now I shall have 
you upon my mind and stand ready. If some day 
you should find yourself in a tight place, write to me 
fully, or telegraph if it is urgent. I ’ll throw every- 
thing up and come; really. Oh, I have had my ex- 
periences, I’m no chicken.” The speaker smiled 
gravely; she did not in the least resemble a chicken, 
as she threw a massive, shapely arm over the shoulder 
of her guest and drew the radiant head down upon 
her bosom. There are better things in this world of 
sorrowful muddles than a chicken, and the Junonian 
and pleasure-loving Mrs. Bohun was one. She had 
a heart. “You wouldn’t be the first to whom I 
have lent a hand when she was down. (One, now 
I come to think of it, was under her horse!) I began 
early. There was the Winterbourne affair. It start- 
ed — oh! — when you were a tiny, or before, and is 
running still. But, of course, you must have heard 
about it, ‘Wentworth and Winterbourne,’ the man 
is your father’s partner. Not know! How singular! 
She was my dearest friend. A shocking madcap. 
Married a man more than twice her age, the most 
absurd affair! A girl who might have done great 
things — appearance, family, tolerably well off too, 
at least, not abjectly poor as I am, and in a really 
leading set. I used to envy her. She came a most 
awful cropper. I helped her, I do still at times, when 
she will let me, not with money, you know (she has 
her own, and an allowance from him), but in other 
ways. But it is n’t easy, for we quarrel like . . . 
women. We have not met since her last rumpus, 
chaining herself to the grille in the Lady’s Gallery. 


Confidences 


25 


That Suffragette business disgusts me, and they will 
have you with them or fight you, will that lot. Now, 
I have letters to write. One more kiss, a long one! 
And” — with a tender searching look — “there is no- 
body? . . . But you have it in you ... to ... to .. . 
care for a man of the right sort? ... I thought so! . . . 
With that hair you can’t help yourself! But, oh, 
let him be one of the right sort, or you had better 
be dead. I mean it! You darling! I shall have you 
upon my hands yet. I feel it in my very bones.” 

Mrs. Bohun lifted the flushed face from her bosom, 
her finger beneath the soft, cleft chin, and pressed 
her lips to the red young mouth again and yet again. 

“I never had a child of my own. Poor dear Fitz 
has been dead these four years. He was a kind old 
thing, but I could never face it again . . . the risks! 
But I could have loved a daughter, my dear, with my 
whole heart, I could. . . . Let me experiment with 
you. Do! One more! Addiol" 


CHAPTER III 


SOME INTRODUCTIONS 

O NE hears them saying that the Private Bank 
of our fathers’ time is going. It was a 
notable institution; it pulled us through the long 
French war and is not a thing of the past yet, and 
this chapter tells about a great private banker. 

The rain of the previous day was over, the sky was 
hard and blue. The bleak March sunshine gilded 
Welbury High Street, shone upon the new Insurance 
Office, the new Town Hall, and the passing trams. 
The little town, which has doubled its population 
within living memory, and is still of no great size, was 
looking its best. On the north side of the street 
stands the Old Bank, a building illustrative of its 
class, as its proprietors, Abraham and Samuel Winter- 
bourne, represent their profession. No two men in 
Welbury are more respected. They have a Corpor- 
ation Account (Mr. Samuel is Borough Treasurer). 
The County Council banks with them; so do the 
county families. East Wessex may be trusted to 
know what is what. What has been for a hundred 
and fifty years is good enough for us. (Mordaunt, 
Wentworth & Winterbourne is their style, and High 
Street, Welbury, is their Head Office, with branches 
all over East Wessex.) 


26 


Some Introductions 


27 


There was trouble at the Old Bank that morning 
in March. The staff had got hold of something and 
discussed what they knew in whispers, or in the lip- 
language used by men accustomed to one another’s 
ways, and driven to silent rapid intercourse beneath 
the eyes of the public upon the other side of the broad 
mahogany counter. Our Mr. Wadbury had spotted 
the signature at a glance. Hul -lo! he had exclaimed 
(in a whisper) the instant he had set eyes upon the 
thing. It had come down from Town with the usual 
morning’s delivery of cheques, two endorsements upon 
it, an order-cheque for a hundred, crossed Cap. & 
Counties, Selbome, in favour of V. Palgrave; and 
purporting to be drawn by the Head. “That won’t 
do for the Head’s fist, ” our Mr. Wadbury had said, 
and had submitted it to the Manager, who had sub- 
mitted it to Mr. Samuel, the Head not being in at 
the moment (had n’t arrived, for this would be about 
nine-forty-five yesterday). Mr. Samuel hadn’t said 
anything, but, his face! You know that look? Well, 
it was a clear case of some one trying it on with the 
Head’s hand. “A little bit of fancy penmanship, 
eh? — that cheque for a hundred. I don’t think!” 
Thus our Mr. Wadbury. Our Mr. Haynes, whose 
stool is next to the one occupied by our Mr. W., 
ventured to remark that a good deal of this was pure 
assumption. That cheque had been met. It stood 
to the debit of the Head’s account at that moment, 
so, really, he did not know. ... To which our 
Mr. Wadbury replied that there were so many things 
which his colleague did not know that a new edition 
of the Encyclopedia Britannica would be needed to 
hold the half of them. Did Mr. Haynes know, as 
a matter of fact, where that cheque was at that 


28 


Who Laughs Last 

moment? In Mr. Samuel’s note-case. Fact! It had 
been asked for by Mr. Samuel himself last thing 
yesterday. Another thing. ... At this moment 
Mr. Wadbury’s eye was caught by a person upon the 
other side of the counter, an unobtrusively-dressed 
young man with the quiet, level manner of Class, who 
presented no cheque, nor had money to pay in. Our 
Mr. Wadbury, as he advanced to the counter, had 
an impression that something about the young gentle- 
man’s face was familiar to him, and subsequently 
dwelt with satisfaction upon this premonition as 
proving that he had an eye. Was Mr. Winterbourne 
within? Mr. Wadbury reflected for a moment; Mr. 
Samuel Winterbourne was up in Town yesterday. 
It was his Gas-Board Meeting this morning at eleven; 
Water-Board after lunch. There was a Charity 
Organisation Meeting sometime later and something 
in the Mayor’s parlour after that. So much was on 
Mr. Samuel’s agenda-slate. ‘ ‘ If the gentleman wanted 
to catch him. . . .” The gentleman smiled, and 
in smiling reminded Mr. Wadbury still more of some- 
body, and said he had no idea Mr. Samuel was such 
a public character, but it was n’t so much him as the 
Head that he had an appointment with. “He is my 
father, you know. You have a sort of waiting-room, 
I seem to remember — the bank parlour, is n’t it? 
Ah, sorry to have troubled you, thanks awfully!” 
Ho, that was who he was, and no wonder our Mr. 
Wadbury fancied he ’d seen him before. A nice, quiet, 
unassuming sort of a young gentleman, very different 
from his big brother. Mr. Wadbury returned to his 
stool somewhat puzzled, too. “That ’s the lieutenant 
himself, Haynes. What d’ ye make of that?” “A 
coincidence, Mister Wadbury, which proves nothing. 


Some Introductions 


29 


The gentleman will not have long to wait, the Head 
will be round presently. Doubt if he ’d have seen 
Mr. Samuel anyhow. He has a full-up time with 
engagements to-day. Gets through a lot of work, 
does Mr. S., but, Lord! what friction! If he is the 
same upon the Council and all his Boards as he is 
here, I don’t envy his colleagues.” Mr. Wadbury 
indulged in a small grimace, and examining the en- 
dorsements of cheques as he talked, expressed his 
conviction that Mr. S. was a fair old perisher, and was 
the same in all companies. A friend of his in the Town 
Clerk’s office had said of Mr. S. that he kept the 
Mayor and Corporation and all the blossoming chair- 
men of the whole blooming nine-and-thirty commit- 
tees and sub-committees up to their work, and found 
time between- whiles to give the Borough Accountant 
fits. Says he, “You can neither do with him, nor 
without him. He’s a limit! he ’s a cough-drop, is 
S. W., and no error.” 

Meanwhile Lieutenant Winterbourne was renewing 
acquaintance with a room which he had not entered 
since leaving Eton. The Old Bank House was built 
in the year following Culloden. Externally it is a 
fine example of Georgian red brickwork, and has a 
good deal of dark oak wainscoting to show within. 
The windows, not too large or too numerous for sym- 
metry, are deeply recessed and heavily sashed. Other 
parts of the building have made some concessions to 
the modem preference for light (what eyes our grand- 
fathers must have had !) but the bank parlour remains 
to-day exactly as it was built — a solemnity. Its 
walls are panelled shoulder-high; the waxed oak of 
its floor is partially hidden by a faded Turkey carpet 
of unknown age and unimpeachable solvency. There 


30 


Who Laughs Last 

is some good brass- work about the hearth. Faces of 
dead-and-gone partners regard one another from its 
walls. Over the mantelpiece hangs the Founder of 
the Concern in Johnsonian wig and bands, Hervey 
Mordaunt, Esq., a cadet of the “Peterborough” Mor- 
daunts. (Heavens! what a splash it made at the time 
when a grand-nephew of the “Mad Earl” went into 
trade!) Upon the left of the Founder is the third of 
the banking Wentworths {temp. Waterloo), a gentle- 
man with the saturnine complexion of his ancestor 
Strafford, who must have inherited the “Thorough” 
temper and methods, if all tales told of him are true. 
Next to the vivid eyes of the Lawrence hangs a por- 
trait in pastels portraying the almost lackadaisical 
graces of his great-grandson, Mr. Cornwallis Went- 
worth, a sleeping partner in the present firm, a person 
of easy manners and large means, a traveller since 
the death of his wife. He rowed in the winning Cam- 
bridge crew of 1887, developed a heart, and has had 
to take life easily since. Never, to his knowledge, had 
the lieutenant met Mr. Wentworth, but so friendly 
seemed the clear brown, humorous eyes in the picture, 
and so familiar the tumbled shock of wavy, dark red 
hair above the pallor of the clean-shaven face that 
he looked at it more than twice. Then, with a start, 
the young man’s roving glance encountered the eye 
of his father, the present Head of the Concern, Mr. 
Abraham Winterbourne, Esq., J. P., at the age of 
forty-five, an uninspired half-length in oils by the 
late Frank Holl. The academician had evidently 
bored his sitter and been bored in his turn, as was 
likely enough to have been the result of enforced 
interviews between men one of whom lived for art 
and despised finance, and the other lived for finance 


Some Introductions 


3i 


and despised art. The inscription showed the por- 
trait to be the gift of a “Grateful Borough to a 
Fellow-Townsman whose Sound Advice, Resource, 
Patience, and Financial Ability had ensured the Suc- 
cess of the First Welbury Corporation Loan; 1882.” 
The lieutenant had last seen the picture with the eyes 
of a schoolboy, and now realised for the first time 
that the straight black hair, worn long in the eighties, 
had whitened since, that the once muscular cheeks 
now hung lined and pendulous upon either side of 
a mouth naturally aggressive, which had learned to 
droop, cheeks to-day fringed with grey whiskers. 
The youth scrutinised the portrait with interest, 
dodging the reflections thrown by the windows, finding 
the high-bridged nose and deep-set eye with its spark 
of light follow him as he moved. It was the pater, 
right enough, but how he had put it on! He had 
always been oldish, of course — you can’t help that 
if you marry again after fifty — but still, Billy, the 
child of that sire’s age, whilst for years past refer- 
ring to his father as elderly, well-preserved, good for 
any amount yet if he took care of himself, and so 
forth, had never, until this moment, regarded him 
as old. There could be no doubt of it, the fact out- 
faced and touched him with thoughts of mortality, 
as to which young people are reticent. That was 
his father, whom he revered rather than loved, to 
whom as a child he had given his heart, but whose 
subsequent bearing toward another object of his child- 
ish affection had gone far to chill that boyish passion ; 
yet his father still, the one man whom his nature 
went out to, whom he longed to see more of, to stand 
by and to help. He nodded gravely to the picture, 
leaning upon the back of a chair, his hands behind 


32 


Who Laughs Last 

resting upon the top rail. “D’ ye know, pater, you 
are an uncommon good old sort? A much better 
sort than I shall ever run to, I ’m afraid,” a rueful 
shake of the head and a sad little moue of honest self- 
depreciation ; but the grimace had no remorse be- 
hind it; nothing much the matter here, one would 
have said. This young fellow had lived a sheltered 
life and had come to know it; he had never been tried, 
and shivered at the thought of failure, as many an- 
other brave man has done who has been blessed, or 
cursed, with modesty. “I am a bit of a fool, I sup- 
pose,” he went on, “a Bom-So: that seems Brother 
Sam’s valuation.” His face hardened. “A regular 
scorcher is Sam, bless his heart, though it is made of 
vulcanite. Well,” with a small sigh, “we shall see 
if he is right, if we live long enough, he and I.” 

And while this fortunately-placed young man — for 
a fellow of twenty, who has passed out of Eton into 
Sandhurst with credit, and thence into a good regi- 
ment, and who can ride as we have seen this one ride, 
and who has a banker for his father may be so re- 
garded — whilst this man, then is awaiting an inter- 
view with that father without forebodings, let us 
put in a minute or so in seeing how these persons 
and portraits came to be what and where we find them. 

“Winterbournes,” as we have called the firm, was 
not always so styled; forty years ago it was spoken 
of as Mordaunt’s. The Mordaunt of the time of 
the Franco-Prussian War was a personage who at 
eighty-three retained the stride and voice of a man 
of fifty, knew every figure that was put into his books, 
always had done everything, and still did everything 
for himself. He was no common man; standing five 
feet six he had the biggest head in Welbury. It was 


Some Introductions 


33 


said there was never a clerk in the bank who could 
not have passed his employer’s hat down over his nose 
extinguisher-fashion. Nor did the man carry such 
a head for nothing; when his ablest accountant was 
working out interests from the printed tables, Mr. 
Mordaunt would stand beside him doing the same 
sums as accurately, and more rapidly, in his head. 
A childless man, and the last of his race, he had 
for sole partner Mr. Elphinstone Wentworth, rich, 
luxurious and incompetent, hence, when his first and 
last illness seized him, Mr. Mordaunt perceived that 
if the Old Bank was to be saved it must be saved by 
himself, and at once. Mr. Abraham Winterbourne 
(the present Head of the Concern) was opportunely 
introduced, nor did the public know at the time, nor 
learn subsequently, how nicely the operation had been 
timed, nor how narrow had been the margin. The 
old hero lived long enough to see his masterful 
prescience justified. Wentworth, whose money and 
county connection were considerations, subsided into 
a sleeping partner, a position which was practically 
entailed upon his son, the present Mr. Cornwallis 
Wentworth, the original of the pastel with the friendly 
eyes. Thus, at the age of thirty-three, the present 
Head had mounted the box, and for forty years had 
driven the family coach with caution and success. 
There had been no accidents, no collisions, no close 
shaves. The county had accepted him, his partners 
had seen to that. If to a fastidious taste he lacked 
family, it was generally conceded that where so much 
was right and so little was wrong individuality might 
be condoned. As a rule East Wessex society asks 
Who, rather than What a newcomer is, but in the 
case of Winterbourne the right people accepted the 


34 


Who Laughs Last 

man upon his merits. It was understood that in 
the distant county in which Mordaunt had discov- 
ered his prodigy the Winterbournes had been yeomen 
time out of mind. Dissenters too, but this had been 
purged by Mr. Abraham’s marriage with the daughter 
of an evangelical rector, a personal friend of Lord 
Shaftesbury, and one of the Simeon Trustees. (The 
Low Church was not so hopelessly side-tracked in 
1870 as it has since found itself; it was believed to 
be safe and was unquestionably respectable.) His 
views assisted his admission to society. His appear- 
ance helped: the man was tall, dark, and reserved. 
His young wife died within a year of coming south. 
The widower, pale and stem, bore up under his loss, 
devoting himself to the affairs of the bank, and seeking 
recreation in the education of his only child, a boy 
of eight, Samuel, with whose maturer presence we 
shall be making acquaintance. Master Sam was a 
banker born; at eight he was grave, tidy, positive, 
and given to hoarding pence; at ten, still more positive, 
he balanced his weekly income and expenditure. His 
father secretly gloried in him and kept him under 
tutors, having visited and disagreed with the heads 
of several public schools; this was latitudinarian, 
that Puseyite, the other, a friend of Kingsley’s. At 
sixteen Master Sam entered the bank. Nine years 
later his father made the one mistake of a well-regu- 
lated life, he married again. Mr. Abraham Winter- 
bourne looked back with hopeless wonder at his 
amazing performance, and with shudders upon the 
years which followed. This was the way of it. Sev- 
enteen years of unremitting attention to the affairs 
of the firm, during which the concern had flourished 
and thrown out twelve, branches, had temporarily 


Some Introductions 


35 


impaired an iron constitution. The man contracted 
a stoop, a cough, was “never better,” or crosser, and, 
in short, recovered tone so rapidly that his best 
friends considered it only a matter of time, and won- 
dered what would become of the business. One raw 
January morning he awoke with blood in his mouth, 
and within a week was at Cannes in a great, cold 
hotel, in a room facing the icy blasts driving down 
from Grasse. Here he had a second and worse 
hemorrhage, and would have died where he lay but 
for the woman’s chivalry and promptitude of a visitor 
upon the same etage , a lady, nearly thirty years his 
junior. English nurses are few and expensive upon 
the Riviera to-day; twenty years ago they were un- 
known. Miss Adele de Savigny-Conyers Wilbraham, 
inheritrix of some of the proudest and most turbulent 
blood of France and England, heiress to a competency, 
and at length her own mistress, awakened in the dark 
by groans and sounds of choking, believed she had 
found her vocation, and threw herself into it with all 
the enthusiasm of an unlessoned nature. She cer- 
tainly saved the man’s life. At two in the morning, 
with the help of her maid, she got the apparently 
dying man across the corridor from his wind-swept 
refrigerator of a room to her own chamber, laid him 
flat upon his back, heaped clothes upon him, lit a fire, 
forbade him to speak, and flew for a doctor. She es- 
tablished herself by his bedside, glorying in her feat, 
the talk of twenty hotels. Her friends were amused 
by her quixotry; she glared and stuck to her patient. 
When they grew distressed and remonstrant she 
laughed. When they left the hotel in grave disap- 
proval she remained at her post. 

The English doctor and the chaplain backed her 


36 


Who Laughs Last 

through. Society was divided in its judgments. 
“Conceive, my dear, but you can’t!” (I quote from 
a contemporary letter of a Miss Conyers to a friend 
in England, a Marion Drysdale, subsequently the 
young wife of General Bohun, “Old Fitz” of the 
Service Clubs.) “Picture, I entreat, the deplorablest, 
fiasco, almost an esclandre, indeed, but it did n’t run 
to that , thank goodness! — but still, the maddest, 
wickedest folly that any one of my unfortunate family 
has perpetrated for ten years, I should think. That 
infatuated young fool Adele has run off with a rank 
outsider. When I say ran, I speak figuratively; the 
man was taken from his bed to church, and returned 
to his room to be nursed by the bride. Yes, actually! 
You know Adele. This young pickle must needs have 
one of her quarterly flare-ups with the Monsignor. 
He is injudicious, as we know; the dear man has no 
real hold upon her, but he persisted in acting as though 
he had. It does with nine out of ten of us, and he 
knows it, so we must admit that he played the game. 
But he did n’t allow for the Conyers blood. How 
he must be biting his nails over this news! The dear 
old creature really seems to have persuaded himself 
that he had roped her in (her and her little dot). It 
would n’t have done. Adele is a monkey, no more 
fit for a religious than myself. But this last prank 
is too too utterly too! Also it is final. The husband 
— a person of sixty, if a day (thrice the child’s age, 
almost). A widow-man as we say in dear Kerry, with 
a grown-up brute of a son, years older than poor Adele 
(fancy!), exactly like his papa, only much more so 
(Oh, ever so much more so!). They are both rich, 
phre et fils , brewers or bankers, or both, I forget which, 
somewhere down in an unfashionable county. Oh, 


Some Introductions 


37 


quite respectable, but Protestant, and borne , and 
exquisitely bad form, a bourgeoisie which jumps to the 
eyes, in the younger man especially, who pelted down 
to break off the match, misbehaved himself, and left 
again before the wedding; an impossible person. He 
calls himself Dan, or Sam, or something equally 
vulgar. But I have told you nothing of how it came 
about. A frantic business! The Palmiers in an up- 
roar at midnight, electric bells going, the night porter 
shouting, women shrieking, Adele (who is as strong 
as a horse) and her maid lugging (lugging is the word) 
a heap of bloody bedclothes across the corridor in 
bare toes and a perfect blizzard, doors clapping and 
robes-de-ckambre billowing! Conceive, I say! I had 
one glimpse of their patient's face and fainted. I 
never could bear the sight of blood. I have never 
seen a corpse, but I said. ‘This is Death!' (It was 
not, worse luck!) They broke the stopper into my 
vinaigrette and had to bring me round with burnt 
feathers (messy!), I assure you I got the scantiest 
attention, most inhospitable, and kept my room for a 
week, but hardly a soul came near me, and meanwhile 
the mischief was done. When Adele could spare 
me a minute I assure you I simply did n’t know her. 
She had installed herself as the creature’s nurse, and 
dressed the part. Perfectly fetching. I don’t wonder 
in the least what followed. The man doted upon her. 
You know (but you don’t, how should you?) what 
old men are! It was a case. ‘My dear,’ said I, 
‘call yourself a bSguine , take minor vows instantly, 
or you are done for! She took me by the shoulders 
and put me to the door (I had forced myself into her 
room, which was foolish). I went to bed again. You 
can’t save a monkey. I defy you! Oh, a perfect 


3 « 


Who Laughs Last 

Conyers. But where do I come in? Asa chaperon, 

I mean? And what can I say to the dear Monsignor? 
He will never trust me again. We were corresponding, 

I think I told you, and he believed I was working for 
him. But, my dear, I really doubt if we can swallow 
the brewer. And the chit keeps her pretty nose up 
and cuts me — mel — I could slap her! The French 
relations have come to the rescue. The de Savigny- 
Carolans have sent cards; the de Savigny-Latour-de 
la-Roche-Gemappes have called. All were down at 
Cannes for the Carnival, as were we. So you see the 
girl will have a pied-d-terre over here, for these people, 
though veille roche , sit lightly by the Church, in fact 
are almost anti-clerical since that old trouble with 
the dear Monsignor. We, as you know, hate mixed 
marriages, they never do. And, oh, my dear, if the 
young fool had given me time I could have arranged 
the most suitable. . . (And so forth.) “And, oh, 
how I wish you could have seen my costume for the 
battle of flowers. I wore. . . but with this we 
have even less concern and must really leave the good 
Miss Conyers to the enjoyment of her grief (twenty- 
two years old by this time!) and get back to the 
principals. 

Winterbourne, who had made an unexpectedly 
rapid recovery, knew in himself that he owed his life 
to this beautiful young stranger, and, small blame to 
him, in a passion of gratitude, new to his experience, 
offered what she had saved to her who had saved it. 
He knew nothing about her. He was still weak, still 
almost dependent upon her strong young arms, her 
cheerful conversation, and gracious, balm-breathing 
presence. He had seen but one side of her, the best; 
she was tall, handsome, very sweet (when she chose), 


Some Introductions 


39 


and as erect as one of the cypresses below the window. 
He bent to her womanly self-abnegation and physical 
grace, and attributed to her every noble quality of 
heart and soul: fell over-head-and-ears in love with 
her, in short. And she, an orphan girl, but recently 
released from her convent, knowing about as little 
of the world as a fresh-emerged spring butterfly, 
ignorant of her suitor’s past and of his opinions, 
knowing only what she had gathered from the letters 
from home which she had read to him and answered 
by his dictation, looked upon his long, iron-grey hair, 
high, white forehead, his gauntness and fifty-two 
years with adoring and adorable pity. A passion of 
love for the creature whom she had saved surged 
through her. They were married at the English 
church, travelled home by stages, Marseilles, Avignon, 
Dijon, Paris; reached Welbury in due time, and awak- 
ened from their dream, the man to discover himself 
tied for life to a Roman Catholic who fancied herself 
emancipated because she had quarrelled with her 
director. The woman to find herself in the hands of 
a precisian nine times more convinced and authori- 
tative than the confessor with whom she had broken 
in a pet. 

Their descents, educations, tastes, and beliefs were 
as dissimilar as it is possible to conceive in persons of 
the English well-to-do classes. Their circles touched 
at no point, and neither of them brought into the 
common stock an ideal which the other could ap- 
preciate. It was hopeless. She was generous, pro- 
fuse, erratic, gifted with enormous spirits and a fund 
of physical energy which, when her husband no longer 
needed her ministrations, found outlet in the saddle. 
He, who knew nothing of field sports, and distrusted 


40 


Who Laughs Last 

the associations of the covert-side, dissuaded, rea- 
soned, finally forbade. She laughed him down mer- 
rily, set him at gay defiance, and ibeing mistress 
of two thousand a year, enjoyed herself in her own 
way. On her thoroughbred mare with hounds run- 
ning she was a revelation. No such lady rider had 
ever been seen out with the Brake. Mrs. Winter- 
bourne’s brook is still shown. The birth of her little 
boy, the only child of the marriage, failed to draw 
closer the link, to supply domestic interests, or to 
restrain her for long. 

When the husband’s disapproval grew energetic, 
the woman’s repulsion broke bounds; courage ran 
out to dare-devilry, high spirits to vulgarity. She 
had her hours of depression, of penitence and fears 
for the future, and when in one of these she was recon- 
ciled to the Communion in which she had been reared 
the breach became unbridgeable. That she would 
break away again later, and again be reconciled, how 
was her husband to foresee? The poor old fellow 
attempted the impossible. When, desperate with 
jealousy, he pried into her correspondence and had 
her movements watched, he was deceived by his 
hirelings and by himself. There had been distressing 
scenes, one, indeed, of ineffaceable poignancy, and the 
ill-mated couple had flown apart. Actual, open 
scandal had been avoided by a hair’s breadth, no 
more: and it had been the grey-haired husband who 
had been brought to terms! Being what he was, 
brought up as he had been, it was inevitable that he 
should suspect a worst, for which there was no tittle of 
evidence. Mutual friends arranged a separation long 
overdue upon terms which were imperfectly kept by 
the lady. At the time my story begins they had been 


Some Introductions 


4i 


living apart for seven years. She corresponded with 
her son, as was natural. The father’s attempt to 
limit that correspondence was injudicious. That 
her influence over the boy should be a source of irri- 
tation to the father was natural, too. I have called 
the situation hopeless, yet there were those who had 
said from the first, and said still, that there had 
been an element of hope in it but for one intrusive 
factor — the presence of the grown-up son, Mr. Samuel 
Winterbourne. 


CHAPTER IV 


SENT DOWN 



'HE lieutenant was still studying the portrait of 


1 his father when sounds of horses coming to a 
stand without drew him to the window. Two men 
were assisting an older man to alight from a rubber- 
tired closed carriage; the younger of the two was 
talking in a hard, penetrating voice. The old gentle- 
man was Billy’s father; the boy would have run to 
offer him an arm but for that voice, which was Sam- 
uel’s, his half-brother’s, a voice that always got upon 
his nerves. 

“Why haven’t you got it on? Mrs. Lambkin 
should have seen. ... A day like this, too ! Think 
of the trouble you give when you are laid up with 
one of your attacks! Rabbit-fur next to the skin is 
so preservative — so simple! I wish you would con- 
sider. ...” The voice was muted as the speaker 
ascended the steps of the porch still expostulating, 
his father upon his arm. As Mr. Samuel Winter- 
bourne never said anything of which he was ashamed 
it seldom occurred to him to speak in undertones. 

“Sam all over, and bullyin’ the pater, as usual,” 
murmured Mr. Samuel’s half-brother. “Take jolly 
good care I never give him the chance to bully me.” 


42 


Sent Down 


43 


At that moment the voice began again at hand. 
“Good morning, Mr. Popenjoy. Anybody within?” 
The reply of the person addressed, the bank manager, 
was inaudible. The door of the bank parlour opened. 
Mr. Winterbourne, senior, entered the room wrapped 
to the eyes, followed by his elder son and a third 
person, to whom at the moment Billy paid no 
attention. 

“How are you, sir?” he said, taking his father’s 
hand and preparing to get him out of his fur-lined 
overcoat. There was some sort of ungracious grunt 
or cough by way of reply, the gloved hand lay limp 
in his, and the old gentleman turned coldly, or pos- 
sibly irritably, from him to the attentions of his elder 
son, who, whilst busying himself with the braid frogs, 
regarded Billy over his father’s shoulder with a hostile 
eye. 

If no oil of Mr. Samuel Winterbourne hangs in the 
bank parlour the omission cannot be laid to his fellow- 
burgesses. Years ago, when he carried through ne- 
gotiations for the municipalisation of Welbury gas 
and water, the town wanted to do something grace- 
ful. Old men remembered the Holl portrait and sug- 
gested, but Mr. Samuel sat upon their suggestions. 
When more recently, and again by his exertions, the 
trams were bought up and electrified, renewed pro- 
posals met with similar treatment. (“Don’t waste 
your money on rubbish; put it in the poor-box.”) 
Future Welburians will know the outward semblance 
of a hard-working but unimaginative public man from 
the “enlargement” hung by the Head of the Concern 
when he introduced his son to a partnership. That 
was twenty-five years ago. The thing has proved not 
as permanent as it was guaranteed, but one gets an 


44 


Who Laughs Last 

impression of a heavy-featured young man with a 
shock of dark hair worn long, a pugnacious mouth, 
and big chin. The hair has gone since (his father’s 
iron-grey locks, slowly whitening, are still abundant). 
To-day the polished cranium rises, dome-like, from a 
ring of short black hair behind the ears. A broad, well- 
modelled forehead lies over uncompromising, deep- 
set grey eyes. The cheek-bones are too high, and the 
nose too irregular, and the mouth too stem, and the 
chin too square. But it is a strong face, the Bismarck 
face, needing no moustache to emphasise its aggres- 
sive impression. The rest of the man matches the 
head: bull-neck, deep chest, broad shoulders, and 
strong limbs; confronts you the Strong Man of the 
circus, the fellow who kisses his hand “as though 
he was drawing a hair out of his mouth, ’’ and carries 
a pony around the ring. Mr. Samuel kissed his hand 
to nobody. Woman had no part in his life and the 
load which he carried was Welbury. As a boy he had 
avoided the society of other boys, and like the younger 
Pitt, “saw no ultimate object in games.” As a man 
he had never given himself time for anything but 
work. Still, the physique was there and served him 
well; he never needed rest, nor took a holiday, nor 
fell ill, nor, if one may speak truly, was particularly 
sympathetic towards those who did. Work, not 
sympathy, was Mr. Samuel Winterbourne’s strong 
point. Hanging his father’s overcoat upon a peg, 
he wheeled suddenly upon his brother. 

“You here? Ah!” there was a note of annoyed 
surprise in the greeting which put the younger man 
upon his defence. 

“I wrote directly I saw the wire, saying I would 
come. You had my letter, sir? ” this to his father. 


Sent Down 


45 


Mr. Samuel intercepted and replied to the question. 

“Certainly we had your letter, but . . . well! 
Take your own chair, father. Will you kindly sit 
there, Mr. Masson? ” pointing to a seat by the window, 
and placing his own hat, coat, and gloves upon a 
third, Mr. Samuel took the only other chair in the 
room, leaving Billy standing The old 'man opened 
his lips, but was instantly forestalled. “You had 
better leave it to me, father, if you don’t mind.’’ 
Mr. Samuel Winterbourne, junior partner and organ- 
ising head of the concern, who got through any two 
men’s work in the course of his day, was always 
full-handed and slightly impatient. With two or 
three exceptions he managed everybody, foresaw and 
arranged everything. On the present occasion he 
set the room as though it were a chess-board and 
took first move. 

“Now, Wilbraham, your attention, if you please. 
Perhaps you will be good enough to tell us what 
you know of — this ? 11 Whilst speaking he had drawn 
from his note-case a slip of green paper which he 
held toward his brother for his inspection, but kept 
beyond his reach. The thing was a cheque for a 
hundred pounds, drawn upon Mordaunt, Wentworth 
& Winterbourne in favour of V. Palgrave, Esq., by 
Abraham Winterbourne. 

Billy, who rarely wasted words, glanced at it and 
nodded. “That is all right . . . my fist.” He 
remembered afterwards how still the room had fallen. 
His brother spoke again, restrained eagerness in his 
tone. 

“Think . . . Don’t commit yourself unless you 
are prepared to take the consequences. You know 
what it means, of course.” 


46 


Who Laughs Last 

Billy nodded easily. What was Sam getting at? 
He heard his father suck in his breath with what 
sounded like a sob, but the idea was absurd, and 
old people allow themselves to make such queer noises. 
He turned to him. “That is so, sir. My account was 
low. You don’t like me to overdraw. I said I 
would n’t. My quarter’s allowance was n’t due for 
a week, so I put your name to it to make sure of its 
being met. See? Rather a liberty, but I thought 
you ’d understand. No harm, I hope, as I wrote 
you, sir, telling you — You had my letter?” 

“Liberty, indeed! My name!” replied the old 
banker, adding that a letter would have gone some 
way to mitigate the folly, but that none had come. 
“I have had no letter, Billy, no!” He shook his 
head sorrowfully. Mr. Samuel did n’t see that the 
point mattered; though, as a matter of experience, 
letters did get delivered — if they were ever written 
and posted. Billy ignored the insinuation. 

“The money had to be found at short notice, you 
see, sir. ” The boy was sitting upon a comer of the 
table, one foot swinging, wholly unembarrassed, and 
speaking with the low- toned, clear candour of a man 
unconscious of a fault. It was his father’s eye which 
blinked and fell. The old man’s hands went up in 
protest, they dropped upon the arms of his chair; 
he groaned. 

“But . . . but, Billy, this will never do! What on 
earth — ?” but Mr. Samuel overbore him. 

“I beg your pardon, father, better let me. . . . 
Now, Wilbraham, we have it from you that this — 
forgery (for it is better to call a spade a spade) — this 
imitation of your father’s signature is yours. You 
confess it. You own to being a common forger! 


Sent Down 


47 


In all my life (and I have heard some extraordinary 
admissions), for sheer levity I never heard the equal 
of this, never!” 

Billy, without changing his pose, grew silently 
tense. His lips whitened and his eyes grew bright 
and steady. “Look here, sir!” — he addressed his 
father, ignoring his accuser — “isn’t this a bit thick? 
I ’ve told you the reason. ...” He spoke slowly 
and with restraint. He was interrupted. 

“Listen to me, if you please!” interposed Mr. Sam- 
uel, slapping his knee to enforce attention, whilst 
the old man gobbled something about its being a 
terrible job, and the best way out of it being Sam’s 
way — “Best listen to Sam!” The boy gravely 
nodded but kept his face to his father, allowing 
his brother to say what might occur to him. It is 
doubtful if any demeanour on the boy’s part would 
have softened Mr. Samuel; this demeanour did 
not. 

“You are nearly twenty-one, Wilbraham. You 
are no longer an irresponsible child. You knew, you 
must have known, the gravity, the criminal character 
of your action. Oh, a dastardly fraud ! You evidently 
relied upon your father’s affection to screen you 
from the consequences of your crime. Crime, I said ! ” 
Billy had not contradicted. “Yes, crime, sir. One 
of the most heinous in the calendar, striking at the 
root of all commercial morality, all confidence be- 
tween banker and customer, all credit! Horrible! 
Why, it was a capital offence until almost recently. 
Within a few years — within the recollection of men 
still living — two men of my own profession, Fauntle- 
roy, the Brighton banker, and a clerk in some Midland 
private bank, were hung — hung, I say, for just such 


48 


Who Laughs Last 

a performance as this which you take so uncommonly 
coolly. What do you expect?” 

”1 say, sir, I can speak to you,” began poor Billy 
once more, addressing the old man huddled in the arm- 
chair. ”1 pass all this,” waving aside his brother’s 
harsh constructions. “If I were at liberty to tell 
you what the money was wanted for, I swear you 
would — ” But his brother was at him again. 

“Well, what was it for? Hah, you are silent! 
I commend you so far. It is better not to begin 
lying about it, for we know too well the sort of things 
and the kind of persons that have claims upon a 
subaltern’s money. You have, or until to-day have 
had, the spending of an absurdly liberal allowance 
from my father. You have also enjoyed outside 
assistance to I know not what amount, from another 
source, ” he nodded darkly. Billy’s face froze. “Yet 
your tastes (or your habits, shall we say?) have in- 
volved you in such expense that you could raise a 
hundred pounds in no other way, and from no other 
source, than by forging your father’s signature.” 

The fourth man, the stranger by the window, whom 
no one addressed, and whose presence poor Billy, 
borne bown by this storm, had almost forgotten, 
leaned silently forward, got his feet under him, and 
seemed about to rise — no one noticed him. 

“Steady, Samuel! Go easy. We don’t know 
anything yet beyond — ” expostulated the Head. 

“Will you kindly permit — ?” riposted his partner 
with hot impatience. The old man sunk back into 
his chair again. 

“Can I have a word with you in private, sir?” 
asked the boy. 

“Eh, what? Yes, I suppose so; why not? Why 


Sent Down 


49 


should n’t he, Samuel? Well, perhaps I did say. . . . 
Have it your own way, then; but go easy; not so 
hard. No, Billy, mustn’t, my boy; sorry. Samuel 
will do the right thing. Sam knows what is best 
for the bank and all around. Yes, yes, we have the 
bank to consider. This is a frightful business. So 
no, Billy; no. Mustn’t. There don’t press, I . . . 
I can’t stand it ! ” The old man’s hands began to flut- 
ter and his head to roll. Both sons had risen. Billy, 
deeply concerned at the spectacle, which was new to 
him, was for taking his father’s hand, but Samuel 
who sat nearer, forestalled him, interposed, standing 
over the old man protectively, or it might have seemed 
in mastery, at least in possession. Turning brusquely 
to the younger man, waving him off with magisterial 
gesture, “You see how he is to-day. Your doing. 
Has n’t slept a wink all night. If you have lost your 
character, pray respect your father. This scene 
must close now. Return to your place. Thanks. 
Feeling better, father? That ’s right. Don’t talk. 
He is going at once. Now, Wilbraham, listen to me. 
This amazing dereliction of yours is a blow at the 
bank. It might affect our credit. My father’s 
signature has never been challenged ; but, if you have 
been experimenting with it, Heaven only knows! 
Pray, how many more of your forgeries are flying 
about? None? Sure? I hope you are speaking 
the truth. I wish I could believe you, Wilbraham; 
but a man who will forge a cheque is not likely to 
stick at a lie. Still, we will hope for the best, and 
hope that this was your first felony. The thing to 
do is to take steps to ensure its being your last.” 

The man in the window shook his head slowly, but 
otherwise made no sign. 


4 


5 « 


Who Laughs Last 

Mr. Samuel paused for breath. He had not re- 
seated himself, but had taken post upon the hearth- 
rug beneath the pictured countenance of the Founder 
of the Concern. He seemed to gather up and con- 
dense the personalities of half a dozen generations 
of partners. Eminent shades of bygone financiers, 
hard, stern men of inflexible probity, whose thoughts 
whilst living had been all for the Concern, might 
be supposed to be inspiring their successor to do his 
duty by the trust which had descended to him, though 
the skies should fall. There was a moment’s silence 
in the room; Billy, pale and governing himself with 
difficulty, regarded his father, who avoided his eye. 
Mr. Samuel regarded Billy, cleared his throat like 
a judge fitting on the black cap, and spoke. 

“Your father and I have agreed that the first thing 
is to break up your present unfortunate surroundings. 
The army is no place for a youth who cannot dis- 
tinguish between meum and tuum . ” Billy started 
slightly. “Yes, you will send in your papers to the 
Commander-in-Chief to-day. It is an easy let-down. 
One word from me at the War Office, Wilbraham, 
one peep at this precious piece of penmanship and 
you would be broke, Wilbraham, as you richly deserve 
to be. But we have to think of the family name, and 
the Concern. But to get you out of your sporting 
set and — er — unsatisfactory connections, is but half 
the difficulty. A complete breach must be made 
with your past. England is not the place for a young 
man of your tendencies. We have therefore arranged 
with our friend here, Mr. Masson, our solicitor” — he 
bowed to the figure in the window, whose silent 
presence poor Billy had again forgotten, so rapidly 
had things moved since the door had closed ten 


Sent Down 


5i 


minutes ago — “our good friend, Mr. Masson, I say, 
has kindly consented, at great personal inconvenience, 
I am afraid, to take charge of you until he can make 
arrangements for your residence abroad. So, for 
the present, you will please to consider yourself in 
his custody — yes, literally — and so to comport your- 
self that your custodian shall have no occasion to 
refer to us for directions. As a matter of fact he will 
have no need. He holds my — our — joint and several 
powers of attorney in this and — er — other matters, 
and can act without recourse, if necessary. Whilst 
you are amenable you will find him a pleasant com- 
panion, eh, Mr. Masson? — but, upon any recalci- 
trancy, Wilbraham, he has directions to hand you over 
to the police upon a charge of forgery : a charge which 
would, in that event, be pressed.” 

The figure in the window expressed disagreement 
in dumb show, if it expressed anything. As a lawyer 
the stranger might be supposed to know something 
of the ways of policemen and that this threat, at any 
rate, was idle. 

“Your father wishes you to leave Welbury at once. 
Under the circumstances there need be no leave- 
takings. I wish you a good day, Mr. Masson. Your 
portmanteau will be at the station. Let us have a 
line from Paris.” 

Mr. Samuel stepped to the door and held it open. 
Billy ignored him. “Look here, pater, if you won’t 
give me five minutes in private I must put it here, 
the best way I can. ” He swallowed and almost 
broke down, but lifted himself at the obstacle and 
went on, speaking very low, “I’m not going out 
of this until I ’ve said my bit; it is no use rushing 


me. 


52 


Who Laughs Last 

“Shut that door, Samuel,” said the Head, recover- 
ing himself. Mr. Samuel obeyed after an ungracious 
hesitation, less moved by his father’s wish than by 
the open-eyed curiosity of the public and staff. 

“I am not good at business,” said Billy, “you 
never taught me any; most of this is tommy-rot as 
far as I am concerned; though I will take your word 
there is something in it. Something wrong, I mean, 
though I ’ll be hanged if I know what. Of course 
I am not quite a fool ; I should never have dreamed 
of taking a liberty with just anybody’s name. But 
I thought you would understand. Of course I could 
have got this money easy enough from my tailor, 
like other men, though that would have meant run- 
ning up to Town, and the thing was rather urgent. 
Besides, when I went up to Sandhurst you made me 
promise not to borrow or give bills, and I have n’t. 
Anyhow, it is between you and me, sir — ourselves 
and nobody else. You know I meant no harm. If a 
fellow with an oofy father starts out to rob him he 
goes for something over a hundred. I jolly well 
know you will never send me to jail, so we will 
stop talking piffle. ” 

“But, it is forg — it is heart-breaking!” groaned 
the old banker with shaken voice. “That I should 
have lived to see it! One of my name, too! Billy, 
tell me, what brought you to it? Who is this Palgrave 
person? What is he? What hold has he upon you? 
What did the money go for?” 

“That is just what I mustn’t say, sir. You 
see — ” began poor Billy, artlessly injuring his case 
and wholly unaware of it. He heard his brother 
snort scorn. His father, too, seemed adversely af- 
fected ; why, Billy failed to understand. 


Sent Down 


53 


11 'Mustn't say?' But, why? And what are we 
to understand by that?” 

“Only that what the money went for isn’t my 
affair, and I can’t give another fellow away. Oh, it is 
all right, as far as that goes; well, perhaps I should n’t 
go quite as far as that,” thinking of third parties 
who were less clean than the man whom he had 
helped at his need, and too scrupulously anxious to 
tell all the truth that he was free to tell to see that he 
was creating a false impression. 

“Worse and worse! It isn’t all right, then. Of 
course it is not! How can it be? But, I will press 
you no farther. I don’t want to hear any more. 
Fact, I don’t think I can bear any more! Ugh!” 
The old banker had begun to heave and to pant, his 
face was a misery to see. Mr. Samuel crossed the 
room to him in genuine concern. 

“Father, you cannot stand any more. I knew you 
could n’t. I begged you not to come, to leave it in 
my hands. You promised, remember!” 

“ Perhaps I did say something, but it is really too 
deplorable, and, really, Samuel, you are too ” 

“Not at all. I understand the case. If he will 
clear himself by a full explanation, all the circum- 
stances, no prevarications, nobody will be more 
delighted than — Now, Wilbraham!” 

“Yes, Billy, make a clean breast of it. What has 
the money gone for?” pleaded the old man. 

“Awfully sorry, sir, I really can’t tell you without 
leave. And, under the circumstances, I should n’t 
like to ask for leave. Quite impossible. You ’d see 
it yourself. ‘Do I know?’ Oh, yes, I know, right 
enough, but I simply can’t — as a gentleman.” 

“ ‘As a gentleman!”’ echoed his brother in accents 


54 


Who Laughs Last 

of profound disgust. “Then it comes to this, Wil- 
braham: failing a rational explanation (as if forgery 
admitted of explanation, but that was your father’s 
offer), failing full and free confession, the alternative 
is the plan upon which your father and I have agreed. ” 
(The father’s chin was sunk upon his breast, he was 
visibly affected. The brother indicated this with a 
movement of the hand.) “The only question which 
I put to you is, are you going to conform to our wishes 
and enter into our arrangements, or not? That you 
should have the smallest regard for me, or regard 
for the name, or for appearances, I can hardly expect, 
but, for your father’s sake, whom you can see this 
scene is killing, I will implore you not to drive things 
to a climax. No speeches, please!” 

“You wish me to go, sir? — like this? with this — 
gentleman, here, at once? — leave regiment, send in 
papers, and all? If you say so, I’ll do it.” The 
hunched-up figure in the arm-chair hesitated, the 
world seemed to stand still and listen for a moment; 
poor Billy, upon whom a hundred scarcely endurable 
contingencies were impinging — his mother, his mess, 
his men, his profession, Kathleen, his future, and many 
another pleasant thing and prospect — braced himself 
against the rocking of the room by the resolve to 
stick it out and disappoint Sam. There should be 
no weakness. The old man’s lips moved. 

“Better go, Billy. I think, perhaps — yes/ 1 * 

“Good-bye, sir.” 


CHAPTER V 

HOW HE TOOK IT 

T HE boy did not hear the door of the bank parlour 
closed behind him; he was not conscious of 
the restrained curiosity of the staff. He was aware 
of a Masson, Musson, Mason person at his heels, it 
was part of the sentence. He hardly felt the parquet 
beneath his feet or knew how he reached the porch. 
There the cold, daunting sunshine sneered at him as 
a false friend leaning from a high window might sneer 
at the wretch in the cart below upon his way to the 
gallows. Could he be the same fellow who had run up 
those steps from the street a half-hour before? He 
had entered light-heartedly — why not? He was leav- 
ing the place a felon — so they had said — and whatever 
that might mean, what was more to the point was that 
he was B-R-O-K-E, broke! Inside of twenty minutes 
he had lost his service, his inheritance, his liberty, 
his country, and his honour. What was left? No- 
thing! Doom had fallen, undeserved, unforeseen, 
irremediable, immitigable. It was too awful ; but his 
breeding stood by him; he never thought of giving 
way. He stiffened his neck hopelessly beneath the 
huge, black burden. There was no visible respite 
or help anywhere, nor hint of future alleviation; yet, 
55 


56 


Who Laughs Last 

as an Eton man, as an army man, he kept his chin 
up as he would have kept it up in a broken square. 
A fellow must play the game. He stood at the foot 
of the steps without plan or volition. What does a 
dead man feel in the first moments which follow the 
Great Change? — a young, strong man, say, who had 
gone out fighting blindly and hopelessly in some lost 
battle? Such things have been. There lies his body, 
the eyes open but unseeing; the fingers groping, but 
holding nothing ; the limbs refuse obedience to reiter- 
ated orders. The instrument, he perceives, has 
snapped, its mechanism run down and useless; his 
purposes and plans will never be carried through by it 
(never!). Of fresh designs and novel instruments 
he knows nothing as yet. He is still he, but every 
external feature by which he knew himself has sud- 
denly deserted him, leaving him in a state of suspended 
animation, purblind, semi-deaf, limbless, incapable 
of expression, yet exquisitely sentient, lonely, and 
apprehensive in an unknown, untried environment. 

How long did Billy stand there? Hours? It 
seemed an eternity and was really a matter of seconds. 
Then the March wind took him a cheerful buffet across 
the cheek, some one who wanted to enter the bank 
necessitated a step aside, his eyes cleared. Sam had 
done this; Sam had never been a brother to him, 
nor a half-brother, or quarter-brother for that matter. 
Fact was Sam was just Sam, and had probably been 
lying low for him for years. All manner of small 
contributory circumstances arose, stepped forward, 
and tendered evidence. This was Sam’s day. But 
it would not always be Sam’s day. He, the younger 
son, had not parted with everything; life, strength, and 
will are worth something in a fight. “I did not sur- 


How He Took It 


57 


render to Sam, but to the pater. For his sake I gave 
up my right to appeal, to explain and have it out. 
Sam may think this is a knock-out. Call it a bad 
first round. I ’m not dead yet. ” 

At the kerb stood his father’s carriage, Gossett 
upon the box awaiting orders after a turn to keep the 
horses from taking cold. To Gossett, an old and 
trusted servant, the old genelman had seemed middlin’ 
feeble that momin’, and would n’t, in Gossett’s 
opinion, be long at business; would probable be goin’ 
back after takin’ ’is usual look round. The figure 
in the bank porch filled Mr. Gossett with pleased 
surprise. Here was the young master, whom he had 
taught to ride, and whom he, and every other servant 
indoor and out, doted upon, back in Welbury unex- 
pected, when he was reckoned to be in camp. At a 
second glance the good fellow’s courteous smile stif- 
fened; he saw trouble through the eyeholes of the 
boy’s rigid mask; his own eyelids flickered. The 
genelman behind the young master Gossett knew by 
sight, had met his train the previous night, and not for 
the first time; had just dropped his bag at the station. 
Mr. Masson had slept at the Hall. Mr. Gossett 
approved of Mr. Masson (in his right place), regarding 
the London lawyer as sorter hupper servant to the 
old master; civil-spoken enough, and one as give very 
little trouble, but not of much account, as Mr. Gos- 
sett judged, who had never give much thought to 
Mister Masson. He gave none now; his young mas- 
ter was crossing the pavement, had taken his hand, 
was holding it hard, was speaking. 

“It’s good-bye, Gossett. Sorry. Yes, I’m go- 
ing. . . . Hanged if I just know where!” a mirthless 
grin. “Nor when I ’m likely to be back. ” 


58 


Who Laughs Last 

“ Gorramussey ! Master Billy, wo tsup? . . . Not 
ordered foreign? The East Wessex ain’t next on 
the roster, and there ain’t no worr?” There was but 
one unexhausted contingency, the old soldier’s face 
lengthened to an apprehensive gravity. '‘Not . . . 
surely?” The lips had formed a soundless word; 
the word. 

‘‘No, not broke exactly, but I am to send in my 
papers, and, meantime,” with a backward jerk of the 
left toward the lawyer, “lam under arrest. ” 

“ Ne-vah /” whispered the coachman. “It’s not 
. . .” tapping a breeches pocket, “coz, if it’s only 
that . . . I ’d, meself . . . that is if you ’d accept it, 
sir. . . . Proud and happy! — proud and happy!” 

The hand-grip tightened, the boy’s voice hoarsened, 
he looked the thanks he could not utter. “It is 
money,” he said, after a pause, “and again it isn’t. 
Anyhow, oof won’t put right what is wrong this time. ” 

“Then ’t is one o’ Mister Sam’s games,” whispered 
Gossett, darkly, and would have given half a crown 
for privacy to swear. 

“I’m under the pater’s orders, Gossett. Pater 
very shaky to-day, so I just — we must spare him all 
the trouble we can. See?” 

“Oh, sartainly, Mister Billy, but ...” 

“Good-bye, Gossett!” 

“ — Moment, sir!” leaning low. “Beggin’ your 
pardon, sir, but, if ye should ...” 

“I shan’t, but, thanks all the same; and shan’t 
forget you. I shall step up and see Mrs. Lambkin 
before leaving. Good-bye!” 

The boy turned; it was about time. . . . There 
are limits. And thus was established his second hold 
upon things. Life and Will remained to him, ai?d a 


How He Took It 


59 


Man (good old Gossett !) . Other holds would be made 
evident as the days wore; sights worth the seeing, 
things worth waiting for; other helpers, extending hu- 
man hands, would emerge from this bewildering entan- 
glement of chill darkness and brute outrage; Gossett’s 
had been the first. (Again, good old Gossett!) He 
had crossed the street forgetting himself ; Mr. Masson, 
conceding him the lead and a start, lingering sufficient- 
ly long upon the bank steps to see the coachman’s 
eyes wistfully follow his young master, and to catch 
a low rumble of profanity associated with the name 
of Mister Sam, then he followed. His charge was 
grappling with fundamentals and must be given time. 

After fundamentals, accretions: politeness for one. 
A fellow fighting for dear life under a horse, with his 
hat smashed over his eyes, in a wet ditch-bottom, 
say, among stifling mud and infinite brambles, is apt 
to take small thought for the other fellow. This was 
Billy’s case. He had come an unholy mucker (pardon 
the colloquialism, it was his way of putting it), but 
the black worst was temporarily over; he had got his 
eyes free and his mouth above water, had retained 
his hold upon the reins, and believed himself to be 
intact; so enough of Self for the moment. What 
about the other joker? There seemed to be two 
down, and the other joker was on top of him. Nor 
was it wholly the other joker’s fault. What? Who? 
Then it came back to him with a resurge of black 
cold and entanglement —Arrest! This detested bound- 
er, a civilian at that! Still — discipline! “Where am 
I going? This won’t do,” he turned to the silent 
figure crossing the street behind him. “I beg your 
pardon, I ’m sure. ” 

“Why? Not at all. I am very much at your 


6o 


Who Laughs Last 

service, Mr. Winterbourne. Thereare probably people 
whom you wish to see. . . . ” 

“But, I thought ” 

“Oh, we need not take it too literally, need we? 
May I walk beside you? It is more usual. We are 
tied to one another for a few days, not altogether 
by our own faults, as I gather ” 

Eye and tone amplified the incompletion of the 
sentence. Billy, who always looked his man in the 
eye, was unconsciously, infinitesimally mollified. 
Natural and righteous repugnance lost some of its 
edge. He had been prepared to hate the beggar; 
to bestow upon the beast to whom Sam had handed 
him, gagged and shackled, impenetrable silence and 
instant obedience. To ask no favours, to afford no 
assistance. This had been his resolve before he had 
left the bank parlour, and here, within sight of the 
windows, he had let the fellow in, conceded the first 
move. Nor did he altogether regret it. The man 
was a beast, no doubt, or Sam would not have picked 
him, nor he taken the job on, yet, somehow, he did 
not look the part he was cast for. Sink his paymaster 
and his dirty business and the beast was not much of 
a beast after all. Such was Billy’s first swift sum- 
mary, compiled upon report of ear and eye in two 
ticks of the pulse. Sam’s man was sixty if a day, 
clean-shaven, grey at the temples, and pale with the 
pallor of a person who is something in the City but 
who lives ten miles out; lean to the verge of emacia- 
tion, and with a voice and manner and eye which 
were neither deferential nor presuming, as inoffensive 
as a ticket-collector. “If I am to be handcuffed to 
somebody for a week it might be to a worse, ” thought 
poor Billy and bowed ; as it happened there was a call 


How He Took It 


61 


which he would have wished to have paid. A minute 
since he would have died rather than have asked the 
concession; as things had gone he permitted himself 
to accept the man’s suggestion. Mr. Masson lifted 
a hand, a hansom wheeled out of rank. “Horn- 
beams, if you please.” “Old Mr. Winterbourne’s, 
sir? Yessir, ” said the driver, levering the half-doors. 
Half an hour later the lawyer watched from the in- 
terior of the cab his prisoner descending the steps of 
his father’s house. An elderly woman of comfortable 
proportions, red as to the eyes and pinched as to the 
mouth, stood at the door. Mr. Masson knew Mrs. 
Lambkin, the housekeeper. Young Winterbourne’s 
face was rock. “Orders, sir?” he said simply, stand- 
ing by the wheel with evident distaste for further ex- 
perience of the confinement of the cab. The lawyer 
alit and paid off the hansom. It was noon, cold and 
bright, the wind had fallen. 

“Shall we walk? Lead me. Where you will; you 
know the roads. ” 

Billy stared, bowed with eyes and lips, turned and 
stepped out. They passed the lodge, made for the 
country, the youth keeping slightly to the fore, mutely 
forcing the pace. Masson, the spare, light-limbed 
man, smiled inwardly : if he had let himself in for an 
all-day tramp, so be it : the fellow must be permitted 
to work off his emotion in some way, this as well, or 
better than any. For an hour neither had spoken. 
The injured youth strode on regarding neither to 
right nor left, devil-ridden. A passing motor threw 
the contents of a puddle over him without extracting 
a word from the tight-locked lips. His companion 
kept step and position for all his sixty years. That 
his presence was an infliction was evident. “Shall 


62 


Who Laughs Last 

I add to it more by letting him find that he cannot 
walk me out than I should by calling a halt? Give 
him another hour or two of it, we have much company 
to bear each other yet.” They had left the rolling 
farmlands, greened over by the young wheats; dry- 
ing roads, hazel-bordered, led up to pebbly flats, 
heather, and firs. They were following foot-paths 
known to Billy; at a stile in the wire fence of a cutting 
he checked, but finding his escort undistressed, vaulted 
impatiently and hurried down a steep track toward 
the metals below. A growing rumble reached the 
ears of both from around a curve clothed with broom. 
In another moment it had become a menacing roar: 
the train was in sight. Would there be time to cross 
before it had passed? Barely. Billy, who had slack- 
ened, suddenly grew tense, with unpremeditated im- 
pulse, blinding, overwhelming. Fingers were beneath 
his arm, a mere touch. “ Wait a little, ” the tone was 
quiet, unemotional. Had Sam’s man understood? 
The harassed lad turned a pale, set face, its nostrils 
wide, its lips bloodless. The men’s eyes met for the 
second time. The younger man’s lower lip loosened, 
letting pent breath ; he heard the express pass beneath 
with the thunderous momentum of its kind, polished 
metal, spouting white jets of steam. The last coach 
was snatched past, wriggling like the tail of a serpent. 
It was gone, and that was gone. 

“ Was n’t like me . . . somehow. Suppose I’m 
infernally rattled, or a bit of a funk after all, ” thought 
Billy, untruly, for who knows the awful strength of 
sudden temptation? “I ’ll stick this, if it lasts ten 
years,” was his unspoken resolve. Stepping down 
to the empty metals he paused and tapped lightly 
with his foot, then, turning to his companion, “Thanks 


How He Took It 


63 


— er, ” and set his face to the opposite ascent, but at a 
rational pace. His mind was clearing, he could even 
think connectedly, and, so, to say, recognised his 
surroundings. This old lawyer-fellow was not such 
an outsider as his master, there was no sense in show- 
ing temper to him; nor to Sam, by cutting the whole 
concern — ‘Tike that.” He shied at the possibilities 
of that abortive impulse. “It would have worried 
the pater.” In place of “that” he would take it 
like a gentleman, as he could n’t take it fighting. Sam 
should find himself up against his master before the 
thing was over. Digging down upon this he found sup- 
port: it was bed-rock for a shaken will whose under- 
pinnings had given for a moment under the stress of 
unforeseen and inexplicable outrage. A fixed resolve, 
well and truly laid, grew up within him; he would 
never own himself beaten, never! He would keep 
his hands up. His brother’s personality, latent these 
two hours, became clamant, offensive again. Sam 
had jumped upon him. He could see now that he had 
always been on the pounce. But why? What had 
he done to provoke it? They had never hit it off 
exactly, but this was beyond everything. He had 
not thought it of him. It was the yard-dog getting 
the terrier within reach of his chain and pinning him : 
no warning. The brute had done him down fright- 
fully. He, Billy, had had no sort of show, nor a 
chance of getting one in. George! it had been a 
one-sided tum-up. He laughed out, a short bark, 
startling himself and his companion, and instantly 
felt the better man. His eyes unfixed, he looked at 
himself. What a mess! Where had he picked up that 
mud? Wet, too! 

“Patience! we shall get it off when it is dry.” 


6 4 


Who Laughs Last 

His escort had spoken again. The b$y glanced up 
from his bespattered legs and encountered an eye 
which prejudice itself could not but find kindly. He 
accepted the counsel without comment. Trivial 
words, but the undertone? Did this old chappie 
suggest — ? He passed. They had come to a stand, 
the spot was high, a hillock crowned by a group of 
ancient firs, a landmark for the Welsh drovers of a 
day when cattle-trucks were undreamt of, relic of an 
immemorial calling. The air was sweet and pure, 
expanses of rolling heath, whins, and whortleberry 
stretched away to the horizon, patched with coppices 
of self-sown fir. The escort, who seemed as fresh as 
when he had started, stooped lightly and picked from 
the short, coney-nibbled turf a couple of fallen cones : 
one had been gnawed by a squirrel to a spindle, the 
other, treated by some beast or bird, shewed the scales 
of its apex teased into a rough hank. The man was 
examining the thing with interest when a cone, simi- 
larly mishandled, fell from aloft and lay at their 
feet, whilst a sweet, contralto whistle sounded in the 
branches. Tu ... tru ... tu! The lawyer’s chin 
went up, he was watching, listening intently. “Is 
it possible this old johnnie knows a bird?’’ asked 
Billy of himself. “Crossbills,” said Mr. Masson, 
in a deep, eager tone. “Yes, I can see ... a pair. 
The red bird will be the male. Most interesting.” 

The lad finished his second cup and felt the better 
for it. He glanced around the little room, taking in 
its low ceiling, smoked beams, and walls hung with 
prints; Sayers stood up to Heenan whilst half the 
two Houses of Parliament kept the ring beneath a 
coat of brown varnish. Her late Majesty and the 


How He Took It 


65 


Prince Con ^rt opened the Menai Bridge under 
similar disadvantages. When Billy thinks of that 
day of disaster he can still recall those pictures and 
the queer plenishing of the room of that country 
alehouse, the lop-sided cottage loaf upon the table, 
the pattern of the tea-cups, the blue check napkin 
which served for a tablecloth, the lunch of cheese 
and butter. He had some recollection of being in- 
vited in thither by his escort for refreshment, in de- 
fault of better harbourage. He recognised the place 
by the swinging sign without: he had once gruelled 
Kathleen there after a run. It was ten miles from 
anywhere. The place was a grubby little hole and 
smelt of stale beer and tobacco. He lifted the cloth, 
the table- top was covered with a pattern of intersecting 
rings of sticky spirit, the imprints of the feet of run- 
ners; fusee-heads had branded it. Would his billet 
be like this? He shook himself and spoke: “I’m 
afraid I have been rude to you, sir; not played the 
game quite. Sorry.” 

“Please don’t, I think I can understand,” replied 
Mr. Masson. 

“You have something to say; as well now as any 
time, if convenient, I mean. Your lead, sir.” 

The old man poured himself another cup, adding 
milk and sugar which he stirred meditatively: “My 
orders — we are both under orders, you know — are 
to accompany you to your quarters, see that your 
papers are sent in and your affairs settled, and your 
effects disposed of. Then — you heard France men- 
tioned. I — we are to travel together to a place your 
people have heard of, Callouris in the department of 
Var, a long way south, twenty miles inland I believe, 
where I have my instructions to settle you in ” 


66 Who Laughs Last 

“Upon an allowance, sir?” asked the boy in a hard 
tone. 

“Yes. I am to make arrangements with some local 
notary to pay you twenty-five francs every Monday 
morning and the same amount on each Thursday.” 

“A remittance-man. Good Lord! Sam’s scheme! 
Wonder how long he has been hatching it?” He 
smoothed the tablecloth with care, stretching it to 
cover some particularly objectionable markings: 
“And how long is this — er — arrangement to last?” 

“I cannot say. I wish I could.” 

“Then, you disapprove of it?” this with a note of 
covert sarcasm. 

“ I do disapprove of it. In fact, had it not been for 
another consideration, which does not come in here, 
I should probably have declined to act in the matter. ” 

The subject of these arrangements weighed the 
admission and seemed to toss it aside, for his next re- 
mark was almost offensive. “Then you, at any rate, 
are in a position to refuse to carry out my brother’s 
orders. From what you have just said I infer, and no 
doubt you wished me to infer, that this disgusting 
brutality — for it is no less, and you know it — is, 
well! — Yet you are willing to carry it out for some 
reason. May I ask what your reason is, or may I 
form my own conclusions?” The tone had grown 
warm as the speaker proceeded. The numbness of 
those stunning strokes was passing off, the pain of 
the wounds growing urgent. As he put his question 
he drove his fists deep into his pockets and his chin 
came forward aggressively. The lawyer recognised 
that the moment was critical: a position might be 
taken up from which retreat would be difficult, and 
words uttered prejudicial to future relations. “To- 


How He Took It 


67 


day’s epigram, to-morrow’s stumbling-block.” Mr. 
Masson preferred to weigh his words, but could be 
prompt upon occasion. 

“Upon the whole, I had rather that you heard my 
reason from my own lips. A week, or a fortnight 
hence would have pleased me better, for you would 
have had material upon which to found judgment, 
and possibly would not have asked for an explanation. 
Now, as I must speak, I will merely say that I have 
taken up a disagreeable duty, and intend to carry it 
through, because I believe in you.” 

“In me? You don’t know me. ” 

“I am not so sure of that. My impression is that 
I do and that your brother does not. At all events, 
that is my motive. I was summoned down to Wel- 
bury last night and heard Mr. Samuel’s wishes, but 
refused to undertake the matter until I had seen 
yourself. I have formed my own opinion upon the 
facts, and am more and more convinced that it is the 
right opinion. If I am right I hope to be able to 
help your family; — and yourself, Mr. Wilbraham: 
if you will allow me. ” 

Billy, who had risen, straightened himself, his chin 
lost its aggressiveness, he withdrew his fists from his 
pockets, and reseated himself to reconsider a novel 
position. The troubled waters of his spirit calmed, 
becoming capable of receiving and transmitting an 
undistorted reflection. This old lawyer-fellow was 
not half a bad sort. There was a face upon him, a 
decentish kind of face, its pallor and the insignificance 
of the features notwithstanding. Billy was subject- 
ing his escort to the unabashed personal scrutiny 
which a child gives to a strange grown-up — he was 
still in many ways very much of a child; the plain, 


68 


Who Laughs Last 

good face across the table began to grow upon him. 
Sam’s man was a gentleman and should have been 
treated as such. 

“I have behaved like a cad, sir. You must have 
been thinking I was trying to walk you out. I 
assure you ” 

The clean-shaven, well-modelled gravity of the 
elder man’s countenance broke into its first smile, 
pleasant, wise, sympathetic. “No! no! Under other 
circumstances I should have enjoyed the walk — I 
have enjoyed it. Such country and such roads! 
Don’t pity me. It was yourself that you were trying 
to walk out; and quite right, too; and you have suc- 
ceeded. I have only to congratulate — ” The gentle, 
kindly, antique voice ran on (sixty seems ancient to 
twenty-one), but Billy was hardly listening: he was 
trying to place the speaker and was failing. An army 
man he could place from a rookie to a sergeant-major, 
from a sub to a splendid serenity or royal duke, his 
padded bosom covered with a scale-armour of clink- 
ing decorations. Anybody off the land he could place, 
labourer, keeper, farmer, agent, and there, or there- 
abouts, his power of placing stopped. In the wider 
world of trade, in the narrower and intenser circle 
of the press, and in the professions he was astray. 

“France? Will you allow me to see my — er — 
mother, sir, before crossing?’’ 

“Why not?” j 


CHAPTER VI 


AT HORNBEAMS — ON ONE SIDE OF THE BAIZE DOOR 

S ENTENCE pronounced, the delinquent and his 
escort having left the room, a silence fell between 
the partners, broken presently by the junior. “ Pain- 
ful thing! Very! Feel for you, father. Case of 
necessity. No alternative. You agree with me, I 
know: we have to think of the Concem. , ’ Mr. 
Samuel, straddling before the hearth, discussed the 
event with himself, for his father, hunched in his chair, 
was incommunicative. “Well, I think that is about 
all we need say upon the subject.” His father re- 
maining silent he glanced at his watch. Time was 
flying; time is money. Mr. Samuel had his work 
awaiting him, and engagements later in the day; 
something was due to the old man for his support 
during a difficult scene, but his presence was hamper- 
ing. “Those horses are taking cold, I should say. 
Here is your coat, sir, allow me. ... So! Take 
my arm, I will dine with you at eight; my one free 
night this week. Don’t tax your memory, I ’ll ring 
up Mrs. Lambkin as soon as you are off. Oh, and I ’ll 
bring you up one of those rabbit-skin chest-preservers, 
you know. Good-bye!” 


69 


70 


Who Laughs Last 

It had been an almost silent meal. Men who know 
one another inside and out do not converse. Father 
and son had few common topics outside the Concern, 
and upon most of the few they differed, and being 
positive men, and the younger the more positive, 
their discussions were apt to grow acrimonious ; hence 
conversation had been less common of late owing to 
the growing taciturnity of the elder. Mr. Samuel, 
who enjoyed what he called argument and other 
people bullying, was slightly restive under his father’s 
reserve. 

The cloth had been removed, there were no ladies 
to lead them to the drawing-room, the men took 
lower chairs and turned them to the hearth. For 
an hour they had gazed into the cores of white warmth 
between the softly glowing logs; neither had spoken. 

“She won’t take this quietly,” said the elder to 
himself, unaware that he was speaking aloud until 
aroused to his indiscretion by the sound of his own 
voice. 

“ If you take my advice, sir, you will decline to reply 
to Mrs. Winterbourne’s letters; or, if you feel you 
must, tell her roundly that it is her own doing, the 
direct result of her sending the boy to Eton. What 
a place! most unwholesome surroundings! A ruin- 
ous error of judgment. Absolutely gratuitous; I 
protested at the time.” 

“You did,” assented his father, thinking his own 
thoughts. 

“Then why did you do it?” 

“ Why, indeed, Sam. . . . We all make mistakes.” 

The sniff with which Mr. Samuel received the ad- 
mission excepted himself from the category of the 
fallible. Silence fell again. The old man was seeing 


On One Side of the Baize Door 71 


pictures in the fire, and sufficiently unpleasant were 
some of the pictures which he saw. In that very room 
nine years before, at the time of his wife’s perver- 
sion, as he called it (though why an unhappy woman 
should not return to the communion in which she 
was bred it would be hard to say) — in that very room 
he had done one of the few actions which had left 
behind it a haunting memory of shame. Take him 
all round the man had lived an unusually creditable 
life, and had lived it in the open. If he was not be- 
loved he was respected. None cast stones at either 
his public or his private career. His course had been 
marked by public services, adequate charities, un- 
blemished probity, narrow, but consistent views. 
Mistakes he had made, of course, though, apart from 
his second marriage, these had been few and venial, 
and he was conscious of faults, but of none that count- 
ed; all save one had been the defects of his better 
characteristics, and were excusable. They had ceased 
to rebuke him, at all events. One still burnt; it had 
been unlike him, a brutality, and he was not brutal: 
an outbreak, and he prided himself upon his self- 
command. It had been an act of passion, and he was 
not, or until that moment had not believed himself 
to be, passionate. And this had been the way of it. 
Nine years ago it had come to his knowledge that his 
wife had a correspondent, but he had lacked the 
courage to demand an explanation. What line is 
a suspicious man to take with a woman who never 
by any chance locks her escritoire? who leaves her 
blotting-pad and half- written notes in the garden? 
who opens and reads her letters at the breakfast- 
table? Winterbourne was not to be hoodwinked; 
he detected design in ostentatious carelessness. A 


72 


Who Laughs Last 

growing jealousy, for which he had no name, was 
spoiling his life. He would have repudiated the 
accusation with heat, for since the symptoms were 
new to his experience he may be pardoned for not 
recognising the malady. A letter in the morning’s 
delivery, addressed in a man’s hand, brought the 
matter to a head. His question was civil, but the 
vibrant restraint of it gave the woman her cue. She 
hesitated, equivocated, mischievously playing upon 
his curiosity. He thought her simulated confusion 
real; she acted well, enjoying the sport, determined 
to punish suspicion. And then, how tell it ? The 
very devil was in the room, humming urn, winking 
silver, and all the prosaic accessories of an English 
breakfast-table notwithstanding. It was an occasion 
which sends toppling the laboriously-erected edifice 
of life-long self-control. Favourable environment 
conceals our unsuspected flaws: at some unforeseen 
stress the fabric falls, with disastrous, or merely 
comic, results. 

Winterbourne passed for a man of imperturbable 
temper. Puritan upbringing, the discipline of years 
of public life, had served him well. Of late his house- 
hold servants might have told another tale. He was 
sixty-five at the time, but the world that counted 
knew nothing of the growing infirmity. He had come 
to condone his lapses, but, so far, habit had preserved 
him from letting himself go with an equal. His age, 
his wealth, his position protected him from the mor- 
dant insult that drives a proud, testy old fellow be- 
yond himself. Then came the occasion, the Nemesis 
that awaits the man who at the expense of half-crown 
douceurs indulges his temper with inferiors. Believ- 
ing the worst, and holding that he did well to be angry, 


On One Side of the Baize Door 73 


he yielded to the hot gust which carries one over the 
brink of reason to depths of primitive fury. Next 
moment he was upon firm ground again, but, the 
Thing had been done — a Thing neither to be denied, 
recalled, nor palliated. He had found himself held 
down in the depths of the low arm-chair into which his 
wife’s strong right arm had impelled him, staring up 
at her, haggard, open-mouthed. She, regarding him 
with blazing eyes, silently, for her little lips were firmly 
compressed, was covering the crimson print of fingers 
upon her left cheek with her disengaged hand, and 
plainly was considering her next move with small 
compunction for her aggressor. The sound of his 
blow seemed reverberating in the room. Had the 
household heard? Would the town know? His 
position, his character was at her mercy, for the letter, 
the innocent subject of his crazy suspicions, was but 
the reply of the warden of Stoneyhurst to a request 
for terms. It had been at this moment, and before 
words had come to either, that husband and wife were 
aware that the door of the room, which had been shut, 
was ajar, and had caught sounds of closing and locking 
a door upon the floor overhead — the door of Billy’s 
room. Had he seen? — or heard? How much did 
he know? Questions these for which the father had 
never sought answers: yet did the possible answer 
haunt his dreams. In its immediate results the affair 
might have been worse. The lady did not push her 
advantage. She was more loyal than her husband 
knew. Her confessor had been unwise. Divining 
a crisis, he had exerted his authority, and injudicious 
importunities had led to a second tiff, and once more 
the woman was over the boundary and into a freer 
communion. From her husband she had exacted 


74 


Who Laughs Last 

the forfeit. Master Wilbraham had been sent to 
Eton. Of all this Samuel knew nothing; he had not 
been an inmate of the house at the time. Upon his 
father’s second marriage the elder son, until then his 
housemate, had set up an establishment of his own 
in a gloomy, red-brick Georgian mansion in Welbury, 
nor had returned to Hornbeams when the lady had 
left it. From this unpicturesque but convenient 
centre he carried on, or oversaw, the multifarious 
activities of a full public life. As Alderman, Hon. Secy., 
Trustee, Chairman of Committee, Hon. Treasurer, 
Warden, Visiting Justice, Assessor, and what not, he 
was the holder of twenty-seven public appointments. 

Back to the dining-room at Hornbeams. 

Silence having been broken, Mr. Samuel was for 
improving the opportunity. 

“Blackfords & Makings have issued a balance- 
sheet.” 

This was the only private bank within thirty miles, 
and when a profession has concentrated into so few 
hands the doings of one’s neighbours touch one’s own 
practice rather closely. 

“Who are their auditors?” asked the old man with 
an assumption of indifference. 

“Pitt & Champneys,” replied his son, naming the 
leading firm of City chartered accountants. “I 
wish we were in a position to submit our books 
to ...” he resumed meditatively, but his father 
cut him short. 

‘ * N onsense ! W e are. I deny ! ’ ’ 

“Well, put it how you like, but they would not 
accept your valuations of our securities. ” 

“Consols are Consols,” said the Head of the 
Concern. 


On One Side of the Baize Door 75 


“Consols bought at a hundred-and-fourteen stand 
in our books at cost price. They are selling to-day 
at seventy-seven. Would Champneys ask us to 
write ’em down to seventy- two before he signed: 
or would he not? You know he would. I’ve had this 
over with you several times in the past few years. 
Why won’t you face the situation? A little at a time 
say? It stands to reason we shall be forced some 
day. ...” 

“The things will come back to their price,” said 
the old banker, doggedly. “Give ’em time. These 
Colonial issues will get a knock presently. The Rad- 
icals are in again and are always buying. It ’ll tell. 
Nothing like Consols, Sam. I ’ve seen. ...” The 
voice fell, lapsing into reminiscence, of which a man 
of forty-seven who has heard it all before is apt to 
be impatient. Mr. Samuel, who was unaccustomed 
to defer to the opinions or to spare the susceptibilities 
of others, smacked his lips in a way which he should 
have known would irritate his father. The old man 
pulled himself up by the arms of his chair and turned 
silently upon the interrupter. The clock upon the 
mantelpiece chimed ten. Samuel, methodical even 
when irritated, knew his father’s hours and arose. 

“Some day soon I should like to have a word with 
you about changing our London agents — Phibbs & 
Goldolphinson ’ ’ 

“Eh? — what? Leave them? Why? Done our 
business for a hundred and twenty years — sound 
people. What more d’ ye want?” 

Samuel Winterbourne had a good deal to say upon 
the subject, and much of it was sound sense, but felt 
that this was not the time. He had planted a doubt 
and left it to take root. 


76 


Who Laughs Last 

“Well, good-night, father. And, er — to go back 
to what we were saying — we need not take Mrs. 
Winterbourne too seriously, eh? There may be some 
little fuss, but whilst we have this to show — !” He 
half withdrew his note-case from an inner pocket and 
patted it back again. He arose. 

“Oh — er — yes, of course. I could take up that 
attitude, no doubt. By the way, you may give me 
that — er — cheque before you go.” 

“What? Oh, yes, certainly, if you wish for it. . . . 
But, isn’t it safer . . . ?” 

“I do wish for it. Give it to me. Thanks!” 

That crumpled green slip which we have seen be- 
fore exchanged hands. The elder man received and 
pocketed it with the slow detachment of his years. 
Mr. Samuel, a bad actor at all times, and who never 
took pains to conceal his feelings from his father, 
parted with his treasure reluctantly. 

“Better have left it with me, or kept it at the bank. 
Take care of it. You leave things about more than 
you used to. ” 

“ Um, I shan’t leave this thing lying about. Good- 
night, Sam.” He let himself subside again into the 
cushioned depths of his chair and presently heard the 
front door closed noisily. He was chafed ; his elder 
son always did chafe him, always had. Billy — con- 
found the young fool! — had all the manners of the 
family: quiet, but attentive. People got on with 
Billy. The old man was aware in a dim fashion 
that Sam was a harder and coarser version of him- 
self. The county set, who had accepted the father 
had almost drawn the line at the son. Not quite, 
for it is not easy to cut a man who is indifferent to 
society, and who, if he did want to make himself 


On One Side of the Baize Door 77 


nasty, could do you one in the eye without any trouble 
to himself: for in these times a fellow may be askin’ 
a little accommodation from his banker any day, 
without wantin’ to lodge deeds, which ain’t always 
easy to put your hand on, eh? Tenants are everlast- 
ingly asking you to do something — Dutch barns, 
covered yards, and all that. Moreover, Mr. Samuel, 
though personally somewhat angular, did put in a 
lot of gratuitous public work of a sort which your 
county man shrinks from, and did it efficiently. 

Three, five minutes had elasped since the banging 
of the front door, and still the old banker gazed 
sadly into the fire. Then, her coming announced 
by decorous knuckles, a stout elderly woman entered 
with a salver which she placed at her master’s elbow. 
“Your beef- tea, sir. One tablespoonful only to- 
night, sir.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Lambkin,” sniffing the fifteen- 
year-old John Jamieson. 

“ ’T is a sharp night, sir. I ’ve put an extry hot- 
water bottle in your bed, sir, and left the electric bell 
on the side-table on your right, sir. If you should 
want anything, just press the knob, sir. . . . Don’t 
be settin’ up late, sir, it ’s bad. I ’m sorry Mister 
Samuel hev kep you beyond your usual. ” 

Mrs. Lambkin paused and waited. There was 
probably something more upon her mind, but her 
master’s silence afforded her no excuse for prolonging 
the interview. She silently withdrew and Mr. Win- 
terbourne resumed his unconscious studies of the fire. 
His lips moved. “Ad&la!” — a vexed shake of the 
head; “ ’t was all very well for Master Sam to say 
‘Don’t take her seriously,’ and to talk about a little 
fuss.” Whether the affair would be serious or trifling, 


78 


Who Laughs Last 

and whether the fuss should be little or great did not 
depend upon Sam, nor upon himself. What a woman 
she was ! And what a mess he had made of it ! It was 
past his bed- time; he knew that to follow the old, 
sad road of memory led to a bad night, but — after 
sipping once he fell into the forbidden track. Back 
he went to his first sight of her, a vision of womanly 
solicitude, bending over him as he lay pumping up 
his very life-blood, weak, bewildered, helpless! Her 
guttering candle illumined billowing draperies and 
loosened hair blown by the draught from the window. 
(He had been experimenting with the open-air cure, 
in a north-west gale pouring through that funnel in 
the foot-hills past Le Cannet straight from the snows 
of the Alpes Maritimes, having let himself be put 
into a north room from sheer ignorance!) He re- 
called her low exclamation of pity, her sucked-in lip, 
warm strength, and prompt decision. Ah, me! that 
first ineffaceable vision of “the lady with the lamp”! 
So had they begun, upon that basis had drawn to- 
gether. It had been the man’s one experience of 
passion. (I make my apology to the memory of the 
first Mrs. Winterbourne, I know nothing of her be- 
yond her relationship to Mr. Samuel.) Such had 
been the woman, and in what a setting had he seen 
her! His first sight of a southern spring, that mar- 
vellous uprush of bloom, and birds, and butterflies, 
watched from his invalid chair in the sun, his bride 
beside him! — the beauty-spot of his grey life’s land- 
scape. While life lasted those memories would cast 
up at times and soften him to weakness. He never 
spoke her name save upon such an occasion as this, 
or in husky whispers to his tear- wetted pillow. Those 
days were two-and-twenty years ago, and seven of 


On One Side of the Baize Door 79 


separation lay between, and before them fifteen of 
tiffs and bickerings, reconciliations, tearful, pouting 
half concessions, brisk, laughing revolts, storms, down- 
right quarrels, the futile mediations of friends and 
officious interventions of Sam. Always Sam ! Ad&la 
and Sam had hated at sight with a mutual repulsion 
ante-dating the wedding. That a father turned fifty 
should marry and enjoy himself had seemed a dis- 
tressing revelation of human weakness to that father’s 
grown-up son. Her waltzing had caught her hus- 
band’s very breath; he did not dance himself. And 
how well she looked in the saddle ! Had he done wise- 
ly to expostulate? to forbid where power to enforce 
was wanting? Her spirits had certainly carried her 
away; her courage had been sheer dare-devilry: that 
schooling-ground of her planning down at the bottom 
of the park with its made-up fences! His anger and 
fear at having seen her fall whilst exercising before 
breakfast, as she supposed unobserved! Had the 
breach been in any degree his fault? (We may ac- 
quit him : if the man did live who could have tamed 
that wild creature by any means permissible in 
civilised society, Winterbourne was not the man.) 
Of her religious lapses and relapses he thought with 
blank, puzzled amazement. What could a young 
married woman want with a confessor? He could 
at least be just if he failed to understand her, could 
admit that he had been misled by his private inquiry 
agents — (rascals!) Just where she was now he did 
not know. His wife frequently changed her address. 
She no longer rode; she motored, advocated advanced 
causes, addressed meetings. He had heard of her 
upon twenty platforms, had read her speeches from 
the dock, and knew of the perplexities of Cabinet 


8o 


Who Laughs Last 

ministers. There were days upon which he dreaded 
to open his Times. 

That she was in what is accepted as good society 
he was aware. Her landed connections upon both 
sides of the Channel stood by her. Town and country 
houses and chateaux were open to a de Savigny- 
Conyers whose only fault was that she had honour- 
ably, if foolishly, declined her girlish affections upon 
an ungrateful old bounder. She was an injured 
woman. (Oh, he had heard it all in a railway carriage 
from behind his newspaper, unrecognised, and only 
recognising the chatterers by their chatter. To have 
disclosed himself would have been worse than to 
unwillingly overhear — and forget ! Had he forgotten? 
In the eyes of her set she was a victim, and an uncom- 
monly good-looking woman, begad, and the best fun 
in the world, and absolutely straight, y’ know. He 
left it at that, grateful for small mercies. Glad that 
he had not interposed.) He had been miserable whilst 
she was with him, he was miserable after she had 
left him, he was miserable still. He doubted if there 
were any happiness left for him in life. He still 
dreamed of her. “Old man’s love,” we know the 
couplet. She had left him with the memory of an 
incomparable spring, of two years of perilously-held 
fading delight, the habit of wearing cellular under- 
clothing in place of the Irish linen which had nearly 
been the death of him . . . and Billy. 

“He will go straight to his mother. Masson can’t 
stop him : won’t attempt to ; Masson is no fool. Still, 
I fancy Billy will stand by his word in the main. A 
time in France won’t hurt him. There is a screw 
loose in his mess; he admitted it, or I would have 
stopped Sam. Sam was altogether too hard. Wish 


On One Side of the Baize Door 81 


I had checked him. Still, the main thing is to get the 
boy out of that set. Forgery, even as he did it 
(what an innocent! Never heard of such childish- 
ness!), is too serious to condone at sight. All the 
same ...” He drew the cheque from his pocket, 
looked his last upon it, frowning, and leaning forward 
laid it upon the red embers. ‘‘There! — Hillo, my 
beef-tea is cold!” 


CHAPTER VII 

AT HORNBEAMS — UPON THE OTHER SIDE OF 
THE SAME DOOR 

M RS. LAMBKIN, personable at sixty-five and 
satisfied with the set of her grey side-curls 
and cap-strings, was nearly as active and consider- 
ably more efficient than she had been at thirty. She 
was used to the stairs and did n’t mind them. Her 
understudies confided to one another their beliefs 
in the existence of secret sounding-boards all over the 
house: you could n’t open your blessed lips, let alone 
go in for little rompses, without that old woman being 
after you. Her hearing was excellent! her steady 
grey eyes took in everything from beneath a strictly 
honourable false front. She carried her black cap 
and jet bugles with an air. Her little round button 
of a nose knew the contents and conditions of every 
cupboard, meat-safe, larder, and cellar upon the pre- 
mises, and presided over a broad upper lip relieved 
rather than disfigured by bold pencillings. She had 
a forearm like a leg of Welsh mutton. Her double 
chin would have added dignity to an archbishop. 
Within the frontier of her little kingdom there was 
not much which escaped her. She knew the old 
master’s wardrobe from its newest neckcloth to its 
82 


The Other Side of the Same Door 83 


oldest pair of socks, had studied his habits and tastes, 
his moods and foibles, and managed him without 
his knowledge. He trusted her absolutely and wrote 
the monthly cheques without examining the trades- 
men’s books, which meant much in the case of Mr. 
Abraham Winterbourne. 

Mrs. Lambkin had packed for Mr. Samuel when that 
gentleman had indignantly removed his possessions 
from beneath his father’s roof. She was housekeeper 
then, she was housekeeper still. She was perhaps 
the one human being of whom Mr. Samuel stood in 
awe. He had twice tried a fall with her. From his 
encroaching and inquisitive boyhood she had kept 
him out of the kitchen, treating him with courteous, 
stubborn disapproval. His stepmother, whom she 
had known from her bridal home-coming, she pitied, 
blamed, worshipped, excused. Doubtless there had 
been scenes between the women at their first acquaint- 
ance; no mere delimitations of spheres of interest, 
but raids and battles royal at which the young wife’s 
high spirit had flung itself vainly against the imper- 
turbable composure of the elder woman until, with the 
growth of mutual respect, “Good old Lambkin” had 
become her adviser (whose advice, alas! had been 
constantly neglected; but, what would you have?) and 
for the past seven years the recipient of regular and 
copious correspondence relating to the interests of 
“the boy.” 

It was late: Mr. Samuel had let himself out an 
hour since, the girls had been sent to bed. Mrs. 
Lambkin, her ear at the hinge of the baize door, heard 
the landing creak, drew easier breath, and returned 
to Mr. Gossett, a clear fire, and a bit of supper in the 
butler’s pantry. “At last! Now, I wonder if he 


8 4 


Who Laughs Last 

has taken his beef- tea? He is liable to sort of lose 
himself, is the old master, after too much of Mister 
Sam. They don’t hit it off — never did. If I was 
his pa I ’d not stand bein’ rid rough-shod over by a 
child of mine, not if he was ever so. ” 

Mr. Gossett, a well-preserved man of sixty, with 
the horseman’s face so clean-shaven that the smooth, 
frosty pink of the cheek and chin suggested that 
hair had long given up the attempt as waste of time — 
Mr. Gossett, I say, with his mouth half full of Welsh 
rarebit, remarked that Mister Sam was a middlin’ 
cribbiter, in fac’, he might say, the hardest-mouthed 
un he ever had to do with, the very worst sort of 
puller, and did n’t care where the next come from. 
“You may drive him on the cheek, or on the bar, with 
or without a curb, plain bridoon, or twisted, port 
or no port, ’t is all the same, bore he will ! Alius a jib- 
ber, now he ’s took to vice : when it ’s come to savaging 
his own brother — My Gawd! — that sort should be shot 
and biled down for the hounds! ’Cept myself, Mrs. 
Lambkin, there ain’t a man about the place as he 
haint interfered with. There was that young feller 
Noakes, slowish, but as civil a young feller as you ’d 
wish to see, and dependable when fruit was about, 
well — ” (The experienced reader may here fill in the 
story of the dismissal of an under-gardener who had 
failed to satisfy Mr. Samuel.) If it were n’t for the 
master, as would never ride behind another man, old 
Mr. Gossett would have give notice long ago, not be- 
ing bound, as Mrs. Lambkin knew, and as things was 
moving, to remain in service to any man. To-day’s 
job was beyond everything! 

“Past belief,” broke in Mrs. Lambkin. “Pore 
Master Billy — to think!” 


The Other Side of the Same Door 85 


“Yes, ma’am — broke and sent abroad ‘under 
arrest’; his very words. It upset me to that degree 
I as near as nothin’ at all let out and swore on the 
box before the young genelman hisself. You may 
take my word for it it ’s Sam! Crool? Why, there 
is no word for it! I ’ve bin trying round for one all 
day. What ’ll his ma say?” 

“The Lord only knows, Mr. Gossett. I expects 
my dear lady down upon us to-morrow at latest. It ’d 
be like her to turn up to-night. I should know her 
ring. My! It would be a peal! It depends where 
she is at the moment : which I have n’t an idea, not 
hearing from her these two-three months. Possible 
in prison, again. As you ’ve heard me say, we corre- 
sponds pretty regular, I letting my lady know how 
the old master wears, and any little thing I can pick 
up about Master Billy. She ’s bound to take this 
fighting. We are in for storms again; I can feel it 
in my elbow same as a change of weather. You 
remember the last?” 

Mr. Gossett remembered a good few, and lapsed 
into details of marital differences as observed from 
the box. There had been a tum-up about a three- 
year-old Crabbets Arabian which my lady had bought 
and was for breaking herself. “But it didn’t begin 
in the stables, I reckon : something indoors about ” 

“A butler, yes. My lady had been used to first 
families and a different style of doing things to what 
she found here, so, being young and flighty, and very 
sudden in her ways, she ups and engages a man, a 
thing as master never would have inside. First 
master knows was this Binnocks (Binnocks was the 
person’s name) coming out from behind the screen at 
dinner instead of a parlour-maid. ‘Hullo! who are 


86 


Who Laughs Last 

you?’ says he, quite sharp-like, and my lady explains 
and the fat was in the fire dreckly. Master pays the 
man his month and travelling and two pound for 
himself before he ’d touch his soup, looks out his 
train whilst eating his fish, and . . .” 

“Orders the luggage-cart and packs him off with 
sandwiches for his dinner. I drove him, ” said Gos- 
sett. “It was no way to treat a servant, though as 
to the money he made no complaints. ” 

“It was no way to treat the master, Mr. Gossett, 
though I could n’t see it at the time, and sided with 
my lady in my mind, as did all the servants’ hall. 
Very upset we was with losing Mr. B innocks, a most 
distinguished-looking young man as had come direc’ 
from some great pussonages through a death in the 
fambly.” 

“As he made out,” said Mr. Gossett, non-com- 
mittally, adding that he had seen his sort before, 
having, as you might say, run his hand over him and 
fancied as he was made-up, and would likely not have 
stood. “ ’T was your day, ma’am, whether you knew 
it or no. With a man in the house this two-and- 
twenty year it ’s odds against your positioii bein’ 
what it is now. ” 

“Very probable, Mr. Gossett, I don’t complain. 
Please make yourself at home.” 

Mr. Gossett thanked his hostess kindly, but rather 
thought — and yet, upon the consideration that it 
was a coldish night, permitted himself another glass 
of ale, poured it accurately, tasted it temperately, 
and remarked that it was good beer, also that he 
remembered the mare he drove that chap to the sta- 
tion behind, a sixteen-one bay with two white fet- 
locks, what died of a twisted gut two seasons later. 


The Other Side of the Same Door 87 


There had been some life about the place then, and 
after then; could remember when instead of a pair, 
as now, there had been the carriage-horses, my lady’s 
two hunters, a hack, and Master Billy’s pony. 1 1 Those 
were times, ma’am, three in the stable beside myself 
and some money moving. ” 

The old lady regarded her friend quizzically; was 
no money on the move now? “How about Masulis? 
and those Linki-Malays, Mr. Gossett? Yes, and 
those Sekombo Plantation Reserves; I don’t want 
to know what you mean to do, but I just tell you as 
I’m satisfied, and shall sell out this week.” The 
good woman folded hard-working hands across an 
ample person and regarded the fire complacently. 

“Ho, you thinks rubber has gone high enough, and 
it ’s time to hedge? Well? it ’s bin a pretty fast thing. 
I gets one, and sometimes two, or even three, pro- 
spectuses every day now. You bin a good friend 
to me, ma’am. But for you I ’d have had my little 
bit in the Post-Office still, instead of bein’ an inde- 
pendent genelman as could give up service and live 
retired if I cared to leave the old master, which I 
don’t. I shall do as you do, ma’am. Is it a bit of 
land next? or house-property? What do that nephew 
of yours say?” 

“Great Western Preference, Mr. Gossett, is what 
the boy advises, something as will keep its place and 
is sure to pay a dividend. And that is what I shall 
tell him to buy for me, being as he is in a City stock- 
broker’s office and, as he says, in the know. You and 
me has nothing to go back upon him for up till now. ” 

“Go back upon your nephew? Lord love ye, no! 
But, tell ye what, Mrs. Lambkin, this rubbering spiles 
me for driving. I can’t hardly keep my mind on it. 


88 


Who Laughs Last 

To think that I reely am wuth what you say he say 
I be pretty well turns my pore head at times. When 
the point-policeman at the trams-junction pulled me 
up a bit short yesterday I nearly outed with ‘Young 
man, do you know who you are speakin’ to?’ Faot!” 

“Gossett! Gossett! keep a plain man for heaven’s 
sake! And don’t think any fullishness as to giving 
up your driving. I know what is in your mind. It 
used to be a public-an-cab business, now it ’s a hotel- 
and-livery-stable, isn’t it? Ah, I thought so!” 

“Mrs. Lambkin, ma’am, I don’t know what put 
that into your head, but you ain’t far out. I know 
the very house and” — the man paused for words, 
his eyes shining, his lip hardly under control — “if 
you would jine me, ma’am, as man and wife, ma’am, 


“Stop this fullishness, Gossett! You’ve done it 
before, and had your answer.” 

“But us hadn’t the money then, Maria, to take 
anything more than 'a ” 

“You fool, you! (May God forgive me!) What 
is a bigger house but more trouble? At my time of 
life! Likely! No, Gossett, no! What ’s come to 
you? Have you less sense now you are a made man? 
Can’t you see that the victualling is just slavery? 
And so is a mews. Night work for you and your men 
in the yard, horses going out and coming in at all hours, 
horses to be baited and bedded down. Horses falling 
ill, falling down, going blind? Your horses, Gossett, 
they ’d be, not the old master’s, as never has the 
brougham out after dark now, nor will again. You ’d 
be in and out, wet and dry, and take to drinking — yes, 
you would! And these motors, as you don’t under- 
stand, ruining you all the time. And me, instead of 


The Other Side of the Same Door 89 


being able to entertain you to a bit of supper at the 
old master’s expense, and having a long evening to 
ourselves, I should be behind the bar, or in the office 
until eleven and past; nor ever have a Sunday to 
myself, and spend my last days in sending whiskies- 
and-seltzers into the commercial room for strange 
gentlemen. No, thank you! We should both be 
dead in three years; but you ’d go first. There! 
you have put me out, and made me say things to an 
old friend as I never thought to say again. Talking 
your nonsense while pore Master Billy has n’t a roof 
over his head! Oh, that Mister Sam! The worst- 
hearted, onnateralest brother! And him, a perfect 
duck! I see him now, in this very room, in his first 
knicks: ‘Lambie!’ sez he, ‘Give Billy almonds!’ — the 
child was always partial to almonds. How I loved 
him! Oooo! And his pore ma — Oooo!” The woman 
choked down a passion of tears and rounded upon 
her companion briskly. “So, if you ’ve finished your 
beer, you had best be moving. Take a house, indeed ! 
Get to talking like that and you ’ll make me fancy 
things. Are you right in your head, Gossett? Go 
along and be making your will!” 

“You mean that last, Maria? I ’ll — ah — turn it 
over.” 

Gossett was gone in perfect good humour. With 
a clear fire warming his shins, and a pint of his master’s 
ale in his inner man, his thoughts had a tendency to 
turn to matrimony and licensed victualling. Nor 
was Mrs. Lambkin usually averse to listening to his 
declarations, though she would never marry as long 
as her master lived. She arose, the house was asleep. 
She took from the dresser-drawer a sheaf of pro- 
spectuses — Rubber, Rubber and Coffee, Rubber and 


90 


Who Laughs Last 

Tea, Rubber Syndicates, Rubber Trusts — a dozen at 
the least, the accumulations of five days. She had 
not opened one of the batch, nor would she, but it 
went against her to bum such a lot of “business, ” 
real printed prospectuses, too, just exactly like those 
upon which she had put her savings a year ago, and 
had seen them double, treble, and quadruple in value, 
and still mount! Whilst idly sorting them something 
fell, an envelope, a private letter, and for the old 
master! It must have been sticking to those big 
envelopes which the postman delivered so wet two 
days before. There was only one thing to do — return 
it to the letter-box and let the old gentleman get it 
with the first delivery in the morning. It looked 
liked Master Billy’s hand — pore young gentleman! 


CHAPTER VIII 

SIDE-LIGHTS 

P ICTURE a room untouched by women’s hands, 
planned, furnished, and decorated by men for 
men; an apartment which gets its daily dustings, its 
weekly turn-outs, and its annual cleaning from the 
hands of men only. Such is the officers’ mess-house 
at Southcot Camp, one of the recent accretions to 
Aldershot. Some sensible person at the War Office 
has noticed that young unmarried men in condition, 
from whatever rank they may be drawn, cannot be 
forever drilling, eating, and sleeping, and unless a 
social base for innocent pleasure be provided will 
discover unsanctioned substitutes for themselves. 

The room I have in my eye is long, and rather low 
and bare, with a recessed hearth at each end, and 
tables amidships covered with magazines and papers. 
Folding-doors, suited for the exigencies of private 
theatricals and the lantern and sheet of the lecturer, 
connect with a billiard-room annexe. For the mo- 
ment the doors are open and the balls idle, for it is 
early in the afternoon, and the men, dropping in or 
leaving, loosely grouped about the fires, the youngsters 
at this end, their seniors at the other. As this is the 
society in which our acquaintance, Mr. Wilbraham 
9i 


92 


Who Laughs Last 

Winterbourne, has spent the past twenty months of 
his life it may be worth our while to watch and to listen 
sympathetically. 

We shall notice that the groups of subalterns loung- 
ing in deck-chairs and settees, or seated upon the 
edges of tables, or upon the high cushioned fire-guard, 
are singularly alike. All are exquisitely shaved, save 
as to the moustache, and all successfully cultivate 
the same expression, or absence of expression. They 
are clean, well-grown youths of the upper middle- 
class. Educated, so far as the five public schools 
which vouch for them understand education. From 
the day on which they left their preparatories they 
have ground up the same books, puzzled over the same 
equations, played the same games, eaten the same 
foods, accepted the same conventions. As a natural 
consequence their faces, howsoever diversely featured, 
are stamped with the one impress, and to the eye 
of an Oriental (and to some Continentals) would be 
as indistinguishable as the faces of Kaffirs to a newly- 
landed Englishman. Whilst believing themselves 
to be free agents these youths are almost as caste- 
ridden as Hindoos, being bound hand, foot, and pocket 
by the inelastic, meticulous rules of their order and 
profession. There is not a man in the room who would 
not blush at hearing himself pronounce the word 
girl as it is spelt, and as his grandfather pronounced 
it. ( G'yell is the shibboleth of his class: ten years 
hence it may be Gal if a Sydney-side millionairess 
is running Society, or Gurr'l if an Irish marchioness 
of a sufficient influence so wills.) Every man of the 
party around the hearth calls himself a Tariff Re- 
former, but to save his life could give no intelligible 
account of the faith that is in him. Per contra , he 


93 


Side-Lights 

would rather pass the pudding than employ a spoon. 
Each has his nickname, and possibly two, with varia- 
tions according to taste. All are boiling over with 
animal spirits. In the main they are truthful, moral, 
humane, and plucky, in spite of public-school expe- 
riences which in unguarded moments they will freely 
impart. Each of them knows his income to a florin, 
and feels justified in spending up to its utmost margin, 
or over. He is aware that his brother in the Educa- 
tion Department, and his other brother the curate, 
live within their stipend. He cannot. His working 
day is short, leave is easy to obtain, and leisure only 
too abundant. Except upon route-marching and 
manoeuvres there is no urgent need for his services; 
yet, as a rule he does not study, even his chosen pro- 
fession. The exigencies of war or the opportunities 
of peace may offer premiums upon the possession of 
Russian, Arabic, Swaheli, or even German. What 
cares he? It is doubtful how his mess would take 
a studious subaltern : such have been ragged in days 
not distant, and might be again. It is safer, and 
certainly pleasanter, to share the placidly-contented 
ignorance of one’s set than to win a dangerous reputa- 
tion for swotting, be remarked as a feller who wants 
to get ahead of his mess, and who, consequently, 
must be snubbed, hindered, and sat upon by the 
many who do not. 

The System, you perceive, catches its men young 
and impressionable, and whilst in this plastic condition 
introduces them singly to a curiously artificial atmos- 
phere and environment. They are admittedly under- 
paid— not for the little which they do, but for the 
position which they are compelled to sustain. The 
System prescribes expensive and unsuitable dress 


94 


Who Laughs Last 

(which will be discarded at the first call for service) 
yet capriciously and frequently changes the non- 
essential trimmings of mess-jackets, etc., apparently 
for the benefit of the military tailor. The youth may 
have come into the regiment from a home where every 
sovereign was hardly-earned and spent to the best 
advantage, through one of the Spartan houses of one 
of the cheaper public schools, but the System soon 
knocks all that nonsense out of him, insisting that 
he shall dine every day more expensively than his la- 
borious father does upon his rare visits to his London 
Club. He shall also be expected (compelled) to con- 
tribute to guest-nights, the regimental band, company- 
cricket, football, and the like. Such a life, whilst the 
money lasts and the pater does n’t kick, is one of the 
jolliest in the world, an enormous improvement upon 
the purgatory which intervened between the sixth 
form and the mess. It has its moments of misgiving 
for the thoughtful ; the cheerful philosophy that things 
are bound to turn up trumps will not always sustain 
cold scrutiny. Still, there is usually India somewhere 
ahead, and the off-chance of active service. Mean- 
time we drill, mess, dress, and engage in the sports 
of the season, and wear the same unsmiling, healthy, 
slightly bored face, so curiously bare of expression 
and unmarked by experiences. 

If you are looking for the lines of thought, for the 
deposits of action and life, you will find these among 
the seamed, crow’s-footed countenances at the other 
hearth. There, if anywhere, you shall discover the 
interest, if not the beauty, of experience stamped 
upon the human countenance. There sit or stand 
the select of the regiment, those who by hook or by 
crook kept their chins up when others went under. 


95 


Side-Lights 

Captains who doggedly hung on, or snatched their 
captaincies from the fire when their fellow-lieutenants 
sent in their papers in despair or disgust : majors who 
got their noses in front of the ruck of captains, and so 
on. These, sir, or madam, are the hardest, the most 
cautious, the luckiest of their breed. These are they 
who played no tricks with their constitutions, who 
did not ride at timber with a greasy take-off, or make 
books upon the Grand National; who neither married 
poor women, nor the wrong women, nor attempted 
to make money whilst in the service (which is almost 
impossible), nor, recognising the impossibility, yet 
needing the money, betook themselves to the world 
civilian. These, having the welfare of the regiment 
at heart, keep a wary eye upon their subs, looking for 
mischief here, for developments there, for character 
wherever it may be indicated. In the case of the 
East Wessex the young entry was good, but green; 
spending too much; but that was natural, and how 
could one tell the Dancey boy that the family brewery 
was upon the down-grade? that the divs. upon its 
Ordinary Stock (entirely held by the family) had 
dropped from fifteen per cent, to four in six years 
and would probably be passed at the next meeting; 
the charming young ass knows nothing of business. 
Jewkins, again, son of Jewkins, K. C., how was a 
fellow to let him know that his father’s recent “ele- 
vation” to a county court judgeship had probably 
saved his life at the cost of two- thirds of his income? 
Those boys, like all boys, excepting those who are 
“put into business” and acquire commonsense at 
cost of leisure and gentrice, wouldn’t understand; 
they still retained the dear, irresponsible, fifth-form 
belief that the pater could if he liked, doncherknow. 


96 


Who Laughs Last 

Of the family histories and private means of most of 
their subs the seniors have pretty fair knowledge by 
this time. Also of their spendings, and are aware 
that, with very few exceptions, the youngsters live 
from hand to mouth. One, the best and nicest of the 
lot, Vic Palgrave, from some unknown cause is fright- 
fully hard up. Practically but two of the mess have 
ready money at call. Killerby, an unpleasant bound- 
er, but an able, determined fellow, has means and 
makes his affluence felt. Young Winterbourne, on 
the other hand, probably the oofiest man in the 
regiment in posse, is the most retiring. He has come 
to be regarded as something of a dark horse. 

“ He can do, as they saw in Tuesday’s run, but, when 
it comes to talkin’, I never met a young fellow with 
such a gift for sayin’ nothin’. And, now, when we 
should all have liked to have lent a hand, y’ know, 
he is ungetattable. ” The senior major had spoken 
in confidential undertones. The Adjutant puffed 
twice before asking what the speaker knew of the 
boy’s people, and whether that old trouble might not 
be at the root of it all. They were still apart, he knew. 
The woman was a good woman, he had met her once; 
she had spoken to him about the boy very feelingly 
and nicely, y’ know. Liked what he had seen of her. 
Tremendous influential person. Seems as if she had 
succeeded with everybody except her own husband. 
Yes. The speaker was pretty sick about Billy. 
Liked him. But was of opinion that there was no- 
thing that a man could do. He had applied for leave, 
indefinite leave, y’ know, upon urgent private grounds ; 
and got it, of course; and made no secret of having 
sent in his papers. He was packing, had packed 
indeed, and had said good-bye to the speaker. Seemed 


97 


Side-Lights 

badly cut up, but said very little. At this moment 
a tall, slim subaltern strolled in and is greeted with a 
volley of questions from the other end of the room. 

“ Hullo, Killerby, seen Winterbourne? Heard the 
news?” The newcomer makes no reply, he stoops 
and lights a spell at the bars, and busies himself 
with a cigarette with much detachment. 

“Well, did you get her?” This was from a very 
youthful warrior. There is still no reply, the man 
with the cigarette seems one who prefers to speak 
to a gallery, to engross the attention of a room by 
his reticence before replying. When the question 
has been repeated by the first speaker in a different 
form, and echoed by a couple more, both his juniors, 
he emits a puff of smoke and follows it by a curt little 
“No” shot through the comer of an otherwise closed 
mouth. This is Killerby ’s way, a method of bidding 
you mind your own business. 

“What ’s that, Killerby? Not missed her?” This 
is a voice from behind a newspaper near the farther 
hearth. “Don’t be a mug, give the man his price. 
It is the best bit of stuff in the market. If I could 
ride your weight I would buy the mare myself. I 
know Billy wants to sell. ” 

It is by this time plain to those in Killerby’s 
vicinity that he is in a beast of a temper, but unless 
that temper be a more than ordinarily ferocious beast 
one does not snub one’s major. 

“Perhaps you can tell me what is his price, sir. 
I put her at sixty. ” 

The paper is lowered. “You have set it; Palgrave 
had the refusal of her at that. ” 

Killerby turns to the speaker with augmented in- 
terest, “Do you know that for certain, sir? Win- 


98 Who Laughs Last 

terboume would n’t name a price to me. I went to 
seventy-five. ” 

“Umph, then I don’t understand it. Dessay I 
was misinformed.” This with an air of finality. 
The newspaper is raised again. 

“Wassat? Whosellin’ what? Not Winterbourne? 
Not that filly of his? Why ever? Waff or? Eh?” 
A stumpy, thick-necked, rosy-gilled little captain 
lowered The Field to deliver a volley of questions in 
a throaty undertone, one upon another, pom-pom 
fashion, without waiting for answers. “Givin ’-up- 
huntin’ ? Whaffor, I say? What-the-devil-and-all 
for? Best man on a horse in the mess: nerve, hands, 
judgment-and-all-that. Make an officer presently 
when he comes out of his shell.” Having run out 
of breath he listened to the news, upon which he called 
upon his Maker to bless his soul, and threw himself 
back into his chair with such energy that his feet left 
the carpet. For a full minute he could be heard 
softly swearing to himself behind his paper. 

Nothing more is to be had from the Major. The 
rest resume their questioning, nor is Killerby now 
averse. He has a definite grievance, and something 
to learn, a clue worth following. 

“But, what did the fellow say , Killerby? Billy 
must sell from all accounts. What ?” 

“Oh, he just said as little as possible. Usual way. 
Asked if I was ridin’ at Hawthorn Hill, or wanted 
her for the Brake Point-to-point. I said she was 
qualified for either, and I very likely should. Then the 
chap froze up and said it was no deal, and went on 
stickin’ things into his kit-bag. ” The speaker frowned 
upon the movement of his smoke for a few moments, 
then turned and left the room. 


99 


Side-Lights 

“ Going to have another shy,” said one. 

‘Ask for an explanation, I should!” (A very 
young man this.) 

“Then you wouldn’t get your explanation, or 
the mare. Billy may shoot the mare if he chooses. 
But Kill will get her, you ’ll see. How? Through 
‘The Widdy.’ I’ll lay an even crown upon it.” 

“But why — ?” began the very young warrior. 
“Is n’t Kill’s money as good as Pal’s?” 

“Why, yes, my dear, but his hands are n’t. Would 
you like to mount our friend for the Brake Point-to- 
point on anything you had a sneaking kindness for? 
I should have to be pretty well broke before I sold 
Jericho to a feller who used the long-necked spurs 
and cuttin’ whip as I ’ve seen that feller use ’em. ” 

“Oh, give Kill a rest, he ’s all right! But what ’s 
this mess goin’ to do for Billy?” asked a youngster 
with feeling in his voice. 

“Leaving testimonial? — ’luminated address? Not 
presentation plate, please, I’m too dashed stoney, ” 
pleaded another. Suggestions scintillated. “Gold- 
mounted huntin’ crop.” “And he disposin’ of his 
stud, you rotter!” “ Dressin’-case with silver-topped 
thingummies. ” 11 And gold-backed brushes. Why 

not say a six-cylinder English-made at once?” 
“Suit-case, then!” “Hand-embroidered tooth-pick 
and ” 

“Oh, put that little blighter on the fire, or under 
a settee!” etcetera. But something came of it, for 
Billy was liked. 


CHAPTER IX 

CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

T HE boat quivered, the foul harbour-water began 
to move, a hawser splashed alongside; she forged 
through the gap in the breakwater into keen, bright 
March weather and a cross sea. Billy, immune to 
ordinary motion, paced the covered gangway of the 
second-class deck, binoculars in hand, warning his 
thoughts off dangerous topics. (“Beans! Ware 
Beans!" he would whisper when he found his mind 
approaching forbidden lines — Sam, for one.) Brood- 
ing weakened him, so Mr. Samuel Winterbourne and 
all his works had been folded up and laid aside in a 
locked drawer of his younger brother’s mind for future 
treatment: he would keep. The pater for another; 
it did n’t do to think about the pater at present nor 
about what had become of that letter. Using his 
father’s name had been a mistake; more than a filial 
liberty permissible within the family circle upon an 
emergency: he could see so much now. Its effect 
upon the pater had opened his eyes, but that it had 
deserved this he could not see. Business, of which, of 
course, he understood nothing, was no doubt particular, 
and banking most particularly particular, but what 
was the world coming to if a man might n’t do a little 
ioo 


Chances of the Road 


IOI 


thing like that after writing to tell his father what he 
was doing? ( Oh , Beans! Wire!) What were those 
birds out there? He focussed and spied until the 
creatures went astern and thought beat homeward 
once more, willy nilly. Then there was the mother. 
(As Billy had never spoken of his mother, even casually, 
to any living soul save Mrs. Lambkin for years and 
years, he had never adopted a schoolboy substitute for 
the dear name of his childhood. She was still mother 
sans phrase.) Yes, there was this astonishing move 
of hers. Where on earth? — and why? ( Oh , hang it all! 
Wire! Beans! Wheat! Ware wheat! You silly idiot, 
where are you riding?) “I must change the subject, ” 
he said, Winterbourne admonishing Billy behind 
locked lips, as was the wont of their duplicate per- 
sonality. This man of Sam’s (steady, there! he is too 
good a sort to be spoken of in that way !) This escort, 
then, will that pass? (No, call him Masson and done 
with it.) Mr. Masson, then, had behaved awfully 
decently about the camp fitments. Who ’d have 
thought of his acting as he had about the collection? 
Helped me pack it, too, and handles eggs as they 
should be handled, delicately, quick, light, neat; as 
well, in fact, as ever I saw them handled. Birds’ eggs 
are ticklish things, y’ know. What might have been 
a long job was done in no time. And to let me ware- 
house them (his word) at his place in the country was 
kind. And Kathleen — yes, that takes the bun. It 
seems so unlikely that an old man, really old (though 
a good walker), should want a young Irish mare, 
does n’t it? A great relief to me, naturally, for Pal- 
grave said at once that he simply could n’t accept her 
on loan; wasn’t in a position to keep her; made no 
mystery about it ; while to sell her to one of the mess, 


102 


Who Laughs Last 

or send her to Aldridge’s, meant — Killerby. So, 
when Masson said might he have her, it took my 
breath away. The only trouble was the price. He 
wanted to give me what Killerby had bid, but of 
course, as he knew what I had allowed her to Pal at, I 
could n’t take more. He would take her saddle and 
bits too, and saw her clothed and boxed. It seemed 
no more than fair to tell him that it might take a week 
or two to get into her ways; not that she hasn’t 
manners, but she certainly plays a little if you shift the 
reins over too quickly. (Used to catch it from some 
brute of a groom who would lam her with the slack 
of the bridoon no doubt.) And her trick of skipping 
half across the road sideways, like a goat, if a loose 
piece of paper moved. Oh, one has to sit close to 
Kathleen, a long stirrup, an easy grip just below one’s 
knee, and a hand that feels her mouth; no more. If 
you take her sharp by the head she will stand up and 
come over upon you, and serve you bally well right! 
Yes, K. has her little ways like other people, but on 
her day — and if it were your day it was always hers — 
my aunt! isn’t she a sportswoman? And I have 
parted with her! Pah! ( There you go again. Wire ! 
you fool !) Whilst dreaming the boy was moving to 
keep himself warm, his eyes questing the green channel 
water for anything that lived. A gull approached, 
his Zeiss was up in a moment, but the bird was in 
immature plumage and might be anything. The 
gleam of an ivory-white back and black wing-tips 
was more satisfying, a gannet undoubtedly. A brace 
of all-black sea-duck crossed the ship’s bows. Scoters 
for certain, for there was no white in the wing, nor 
hint of colour about the head. “Pardon, m’sieu! 
Sacr6! Ah, quel dommage!” A steward carrying 


Chances of the Road 


103 


an arm-load of storm-pans had slipped upon a greasy 
deck-plate and barged him into the bulwark. Billy’s 
breath was knocked out of him, a shroud took the 
glasses, his grip failed, they were gone! To drop one’s 
binoculars overside at the beginning of a tour is most 
annoying. And this was not a tour ; it came home to 
the loser that the things, so far as he was concerned, 
were practically irreplaceable. Let it be scored to his 
credit that the boy took the minor misfortune as he 
had taken others more serious. What use in cursing 
a Frenchman who had not intended it and did n’t 
understand you? whose shoulders were up to his 
ears in pantomimic apology? The things were gone. 
He sucked in his lips, drove his hands into his pockets, 
and bethought him of Masson. There was certainly 
more motion, not that he minded, but people were 
going below. He could see chairs emptying upon the 
first-class deck ; a lady with dark red hair had accepted 
the arm of a handy little blue matelot, a tall parson 
of some sort assisting with her rugs. Masson, who 
had been seated, was now at full length and in a poor- 
ish way. He seemed unconscious of Billy’s approach : 
eyes and lips clenched against an impending spasm, 
his complexion greenish. Winterbourne, whose ex- 
periences of the sea had been few and pleasant, had 
never seen a man so collapsed and was really concerned. 
He recovered a hat and book from the scuppers, ad- 
justed a loosened rug, and otherwise made himself 
useful. The patient, so soon as the immediate trouble 
was over, aroused and smiled his thanks pluckily. 

“How good of you! Yes, but you mustn’t waste 
your time on me. Are there no birds about? I once 
saw shear-waters in mid-Channel. Where are youi 
binoculars?” 


104 


Who Laughs Last 

Billy explained, accepting the blame, should have 
been using the strap. “Bad job, sir. ” 

“Use mine. Find them in my hand-bag. . . . 
Most welcome. ’Fraid I must lie back again and 
keep my eyes shut. ” 

Billy declined the loan appreciatively, declared it 
was too rough to keep an object in the field, and was 
for remaining, but the old gentleman smilingly refused 
to be watched, declaring that a bout of mal de mer 
did him all the good in the world; and sending his 
companion away to play, as he called it, subsided into 
his wraps with that ecstatic smile of utter comfort 
which supervenes upon a paroxysm. This was his 
fourth day of wardership; he increasingly liked his 
prisoner, but the two had not yet grown confidential : 
that might come. Meanwhile he had plenty to occupy 
his mind: the behaviour of Mrs. Winterbourne for 
one thing. That erratic lady had left her Cheltenham 
address: her son and himself had found the house 
shut up. Masson, as trustee under a post-nuptial 
settlement for Mrs. Winterbourne and her issue, was 
interested in her welfare and whereabouts; Billy’s 
majority was imminent, when arrangements might, 
or might not, have to be made. This was one conun- 
drum upon which the clear, cool old brain was at 
work. There were others. 

The boy resumed his perambulations, his thoughts 
revolving more pleasantly around this cheery old 
stoic. Picking his way among silently-enduring 
seconds he found an uncovered space of deck forward, 
occupied by a motor-car, lashed and chocked into 
stability. The thing was the last cry of its kind ; it 
represented the condensed activities of a generation. 
Metallurgy, chemistry, physics, mechanics, had said 


Chances of the Road 


105 


their say ; the brains of a thousand clever fellows had 
addled that this thing might be; a yellow-bodied 
Wolseley of enormous horse power and fabulous cost. 
It had evidently been touring in Great Britain, and 
formed the moving home of some American millionaire. 
There was something under a ton of luggage behind 
uninitialled, and giving no clue to its owner’s person- 
ality or domicile. From its metal and leathern hoods 
to its armoured treads it was a magnificent expression 
of ingenuity placed at the disposal of irresponsible 
wealth. Billy, who was not wholly unacquainted 
with the manners of the motorist, could imagine that 
the proprietor of this prodigy would hardly be content 
to paddle along at a gentle forty-five; it would be 
“ Speed her , Adawlphe! We are behind time.” He 
knew that the owners of the most rapid and easy- 
travelling apparatus in the world are habitually behind 
time, and make it up at the expense of the roads and 
of such as use them for the purposes for which they 
were built. 

Whilst some such reflections as these were occurring 
to him he was aware of another person narrowly scru- 
tinising the motor, apparently a third-class, to judge 
by a pair of great, red, gloveless hands contracted 
by manual labour. Billy had the eye that takes in 
details at a glance, and saw that the long and heavy 
overcoat had never been cut or put together in Eng- 
land. Its rough flock surface was an imitation of 
frieze, but was not frieze, nor had the texture, nor 
gloss, nor pliancy of woollen. Billy had never seen 
such material, for the stuff was cotton and was of 
American make. The wearer seemed interested in 
the car as a whole rather than in any particular detail 
of its construction; he stared intently, ignoring the 


106 Who Laughs Last 

presence of the only other person upon that part of 
the vessel. A few moments later he was gone, but 
when Billy, who was attracted by the splendid com- 
pleteness of the apparatus, had worked round to the 
other side of the car, the man was there and still 
staring, and this time with his hands hidden in the 
deep side-pockets of his coat. The fellow shot a quick 
glance at the youth, and as he did so was thrown off 
his balance by a roll of the ship ; his right elbow jerked, 
his hand was partially withdrawn from his pocket, 
giving a momentary glimpse of the handle of a knife. 
It was hidden instantly. The man was unaware of 
what he had revealed, nor did Billy give the matter a 
second thought, being naturally unsuspicious, a pro- 
duct of quiet times. He fell to examining a novel 
attachment for the Stepney, and when he raised his 
head was alone. Something splashed upon the deck 
beside him ; no rain was falling, nor was the ship taking 
water overside. He glanced up and saw a person in 
motoring dress leaning upon the rail of the first-class 
bridge above. The person had expectorated, he was 
smoking a big fat cigar; Billy supposed him to be 
the owner, or chauffeur, of this car, and an American. 
The action would be involuntary, unconscious, a nation- 
al trait for which allowance must be made ; he would 
give the smoker more room, and was admiring the head- 
lights, large enough for a ship, when there was a sud- 
den outbreak of hot speech within a few yards of him. 
“No, you don't! Put up your hand, you are covered!” 

The man in the motor-coat had descended from the 
upper deck and had got the third-class by his right cuff 
and was holding a Browning short to his body. 
“Heah! you Britisher, if you are a white mahn handle 
this tough’s left, he was for ripping my tires !” 


Chances of the Road 


107 


Before Billy had moved the situation had developed 
peacefully. “Nawnsinse!” growled the third, with- 
out offering resistance. “Fwhat are ye gettin’ at? 
Look here, sorr!” appealing to Billy, “mayn’t a 
mahn be cuttin’ himself a chaw on this ship, anyway? ” 
Whilst speaking he extricated both hands from his 
pockets ; the right held a long and formidable knife 
of a pattern new to the young Englishman, the left 
nothing more compromising than a coil of plug. The 
motorist, unabashed, nor in the least apologetic or 
shaken in his view, lowered his “gun” and looked the 
Irishman over from head to foot. “Vurry well. 
That is your story. It will do for this time. Naow, 
understahnd that I have seen you twice before. You 
had better walk wide of me. Mind, I ’ve warned you. 
Clear, naow! Git!” That the speaker was a man 
accustomed to have his own way to the minutest 
particular was evident. He put a gold dog-call to 
his lips, but did not sound it, muttering, “ No, use: the 
mahn is sick. ’ ’ Billy understood that he was referring 
to his chauffeur. The speaker was a smallish, light- 
boned man, if one might judge by the hairy backs of his 
bare hands. He was clean shaven and of a disagree- 
ably thick complexion with a thin-lipped, wide mouth. 
Black eyebrows met across the base of the nose, and 
from under them shone eyes un-English in their 
darkness ; bright, boring, and onyx-hard. He turned to 
Billy, seeing a use for him. “Mahn ’s a ‘Molly,’ sir. 
I ’m up against their push. He is one of our undesir- 
ables ; several shades blacker than a nig. Abohwt as 
low daohn as our imported Eye-tahlians, indeed : and 
a N ’ york Eye-tahlian who has learnt the ropes is no 
peach. Have a cigar, sir. Say, may I offer you a lift 
as far as . . . Pahrry?” Out came a jewelled case. 


io8 


Who Laughs Last 

Billy murmured his thanks, but declined, had made 
his arrangements, was one of a party. His sinews had 
tightened at sight of steel and pistol, and had relaxed 
at this anti-climax. Like most of his countrymen he 
dreaded being drawn into a row. His one interest 
in this international complication was to be out of it. 
Which of the parties he liked the least he could not 
have said. The Irishman had walked off, carrying his 
head high, but unprovocatively : too quietly for a man 
of his race, thought Billy, who could not make up his 
mind about him. The car-owner was repulsive; at 
the worst he was labouring under a mistake, at the 
best justifiably defending his property, but the boy 
disliked him with a cordiality which surprised himself 
and was new to his experience. The fellow had an 
enemy (such fellows always have), and this knowledge 
had got upon his nerves until the mere sight of a stran- 
ger examining his car made him insult him, and an 
open knife sent his hand to his pistol. To be enlisted 
as supernumerary guard for a day’s ride would not 
have appealed to the boy had circumstances permitted 
him to accept the post. He returned to Masson, who 
seemed better; still smiling. “You back? Don’t 
look at me so compassionately, I shall be all right 
directly we are inside the pier-heads, ” and was so, to 
Billy’s relief, who offered an arm and insisted upon 
carrying the hand-luggage of both. Upon the gang- 
plank, and again in the crush in the douane , the boy 
found himself behind a lady whose slightly-disordered 
wealth of chestnut hair drew his passing attention. 
Later, when he had steered the still tottery Masson to 
a seat at the buffet, he found the same lady seated at 
the opposite side of the only table left vacant. She 
was young and had plainly suffered, but was taking 


Chances of the Road 


109 


hot soup with relish. Her eyes rose as he addressed 
a waiter, his met them, both caught their breaths and 
smiled. This was the lady of Round Wood. The 
young people simultaneously leapt off into conversa- 
tion. How funny, what a coincidence! and oh, what 
a passage! He had not noticed much amiss. The 
lady had, oh, vile! This was the worst bit of sea she 
knew, and the liveliest boat ! (She spoke as travellers 
speak, but looked young for experiences.) Was 
. . . was he going far? There was a shy challenge, or 
appeal, a something in her eyes, which, had Billy 
understood women (no man understood them less), 
would have told him that this lady was travelling 
unattended, and would not object to the company 
of an accredited Englishman. Marion Bohun knew 
something of him. She wished she could recall his 
name. She was sure he was all right. * The old 
gentleman beside him was obviously inoffensive. She 
was preparing to introduce herself by name (had 
forgot, or had never heard his from Marion), and to 
propose making up an English compartment, when she 
beheld the flush of pleasure die out of the boy’s face 
and found herself addressing an unresponsive, ex- 
pressionless mask. What had she said? Nothing. 
What had happened? She knew not, but, being 
sensitive, was aware that there was something wrong. 
Mr. Winterborough — the name Marion had used had 
come back to her — was not desirous of her acquaint- 
ance. She dropped her eyes and applied herself to 
her food. Ten minutes later she saw the pale profile 
of the older man at the window of a second. “So 
that was it! As if I minded. I would rather ride 
third with English people any day than alone in a 
first or with foreigners even in a corridor train.” 


no 


Who Laughs Last 

She drew a crumpled tissue from her vanity-bag and 
read it for the twentieth time. ‘ ‘ Now, what does that 
woman mean? And a new address again! Why?” 
There was no reply to these, nor to the many other 
questions which teased her. Millicent Wentworth 
was confronted by the tormenting reticence of a 
telegram and the boredom of a long solitary journey. 
Really, some young men are remarkably stupid. She 
had given him an opening ; they had been introduced, 
or as good as (a mutual acquaintance does as well), 
and with that old gentleman, a chaperon ready-made, 
might have amused one another as far as Paris. She 
had thought better of English army men. 

“Ahem — I beg your pardon! I — er — wonder if 
you would object to my sharing your compartment? 
I incautiously put my wraps into a smoker. Are you 
quite sure ? Really ? It is most good of you ! ’ ’ 

It was the clergyman who had carried her rugs 
from the boat to the buffet. The lady assented affably : 
whilst extending to the newcomer the hospitality of 
a compartment over which she had merely conven- 
tional rights, she exercised the clear-eyed, innocent 
scrutiny of her species. Millicent Wentworth had 
been fortunate hitherto in the men of her acquaintance 
but never had encountered one who evoked more than 
a passing interest. This rode well, that talked well, 
the other wore his clothes well, or walked well, or ill, 
as his case might be. No male human had ever at- 
tracted her, nor had she the smallest disposition to 
fascinate one of the other sex. She liked most men, 
some more, some less, but the one had yet to cross her 
path. In some indefinite, altogether unrealised way 
she supposed that such an one did somewhere exist. 
She was no fool, and neither spoke nor thought of 


Chances of the Road 


hi 


marriage with repugnance. Why should she? she 
knew nothing about it. A woman in outward form 
and grace, she had still much of the outlook of the 
child and was unaware of her own combustibility, for 
none had yet come with the torch. What reserves 
of interest she held for manhood were for a type which 
she had met only in books. She believed herself 
cold to physical endowments (knowing little of her- 
self) but confessed an interest in Mind. With Power, 
Intellect, Distinction, Genius, above all, Greatness, she 
longed to get into touch — being young, motherless, and 
by the wandering habits of her father of late cut off 
from regular, wholesome intercourse with girls of 
her age, and so driven too much upon herself for 
counsel, and accustomed to weave wordless romances 
about the folk whom she met, romances wherein 
imagination outstripped judgment. 

She saw that the newcomer was tall and of majestic 
carriage, conducting himself with a certain deliberate 
assurance; in gesture easy, spacious, even grandiose. 
He moved like an animated statue, and addressed 
her with a sweet gravity in a voice of singular compass 
and richness. Nor did it occur to her that these 
graces were the results of study. Whilst he arranged 
his possessions the girl’s eyes were not idle. Being a 
woman, she took note of his clothing and found it of 
expensive materials and admirably cut. “He has a 
good tailor, ” thought she. The large, regular features 
were engraven with thought and experience. The 
pallor of a clean-shaven countenance suggested a 
student. The great aquiline nose advanced over a 
wide, thin-lipped mouth, upheld by a ^veil-modelled 
chin. The removal of a soft clerical hat disclosed a 
lofty and impressive forehead from which the grey 


1 12 Who Laughs Last 

hair had receded to fall in rippling masses over his 
collar behind. He must be quite old, thought the 
girl, and instinctively felt the safer; but when, turning, 
he seated himself with the majestic ease of a Greek 
philosopher and turned upon her a pair of luminous 
eyes, gravely observant, she began to wonder who 
her fellow-traveller might be. Never before had she 
found herself in the presence of any one so surely 
stamped with the impress of ability. She told herself 
that it was the head of a Roman Consul, a Scipio, or 
senator of the Julian gens; she had seen it in some 
museum, nor knew that memory was playing her 
false, and that the man before her recalled the bust 
of Hahnemann in the window of a homoeopathic 
chemist. Drawing off fur-lined gauntlets he arranged 
a rug around his limbs with large white hands. Milli- 
cent observed the polishing and finish of the nails; 
he was wearing an episcopal signet. A Churchman! 
Such have power with women, as we know. Corn- 
wallis Wentworth, before his second marriage, had 
kept good company upon his travels and been wel- 
comed by foreign statesmen. At her father’s table 
head Millicent had met great names and listened to 
clever talkers. One colonial bishop had impressed 
her imagination for at least three courses. A Great 
Man at last! Then, the high-pitched neigh, greeting 
some pleasantry of his host’s, had offended that host’s 
quietly-observant daughter and scattered the incense 
she was preparing to offer. On another day a burly 
Empire-builder had seemed a demi-god for an hour, 
but some uncouthness or other had repelled her 
from his shrine. Which goes to show that youth so 
given to hero-worship is an indifferent judge of 
heroes. 


Chances of the Road 


113 

The stranger caught the lady’s eye upon him and 
spoke. 

“This, rather than the strife of tongues, is the 
flower of civilisation. ” The great hazel eyes beneath 
the iron-grey brows regarded her blandly, whilst the 
lips attracted and engrossed her attention. “Apply 
your mind to it and you shall confess that no single 
achievement of all man’s gains from the days of his 
apehood transcend this which you and I illustrate — 
that a lady and a gentleman can meet and converse 
upon equal terms upon an intellectual basis, undis- 
turbed by claims of self-preservation, the inclemencies 
of the season, or the demands of the body. ” 

He paused, and Millicent bowed assent, smiling; 
the point of view interested her. The slight American 
accent, which might have offended an untravelled 
Englishwoman, went for nothing with a girl accus- 
tomed to the Cockney twang of educated Australia. 

“This is not your first journey, no! I recognise 
in you the assurance of experience. What a boon! 
and how recently won! Your grandmother probably 
hardly left her native township thrice before her mar- 
riage. You, if I may hazard a guess, have crossed 
continents and seas?” 

Millicent laughed and owned to having seen the 
Riviera, to which she was going, and having been 
farther afield still. Within five minutes they were 
comparing impressions of London, of Paris, of San 
Francisco. She mentioned Cape Town. Oh ! she had 
visited the lands south of the Line? What was her 
abiding impression of South Africa? Her favourite 
landscape? 

“Sunset over the Karoo ! ” Bit by bit out it came, 
in the most natural manner. Why not? Her people 


ii4 Who Laughs Last 

had gone there in search of health. This seemed 
innocent enough and sufficiently guarded, but a few 
minutes later she found that her grave, well-informed 
companion had learnt more of her father’s circum- 
stances, health, and what-not than she had proposed 
telling. His name she had not given. Nor did the 
other spell for it, having already ascertained it from 
her labelled luggage on the boat. 

Did not this constant movement and change of 
scene weary her? The life of hotels, for example? 
She owned that it had disadvantages ; one’s acquaint- 
anceships were too brief to grow into friendships, no 
sooner made than dissipated. On mail-boats, for 
instance. He bowed sententiously, had known and 
seen the vanity of it. This passing show was not 
life in any true sense. Nor, indeed, in its fullest sense 
was its alternative, the humdrum borne existence of 
the little house with its exigeant domesticities. 
Woman was created for nobler ends than the ordering 
of meals, the drilling of servants, the making of beds 
(he smiled), the arranging of flowers. What would be 
the ideal existence? Would she let her imagination 
play for a moment? Conceive a mediaeval pleasaunce, 
a green sward surrounded by high old walls crowned 
with weeds and waving grasses, such as Albrecht Durer 
drew, noble buildings, apartments great and small, 
fitted for every use, garden walks, fine prospects, a 
forest at hand, and in such surroundings to be one of a 
gracious company of earnest men and beautiful women 
sharing their family life, converse, and intellectual 
pursuits, their recreations and worship under the 
direction of a Guide, a Supreme Head, to whom all 
yielded loyal obedience, whilst the cares of private 
and selfish possessions were surrendered to capable 


Chances of the Road 


115 

management, held for the general use, and enjoyed in 
common. “ 4 Nor did any man say aught that he had 
was his own, ’ ’ ’ murmured the fine lips. ‘ ‘ What peace ! 
What soul-elevating intercourse! What gradual, yet 
ennobling and pleasurable ascent to the heights!’’ 

The lady, following the idea out, suggested that “ it 
must be like a Mediterranean Round Cruise ashore; or 
Newnham to the top-note, with commemoration, you 
know, and the dons thrown in. ” The other inclined 
gravely: possibly he had not seen Newnham in Com- 
memoration Week. 

“ But I weary you ! ’ ’ The lady had yawned slightly 
behind a little hand. She disclaimed weariness of 
that sort, had enjoyed, was enjoying herself, but per- 
haps the boat had been tiring. Those fine, compelling 
eyes were upon her, she blinked smilingly, despite 
herself, her eyelids slid down ; it seemed so rude to go 
to sleep in the presence of a man and a stranger, whilst 
he was exerting himself to amuse her, too. He was 
leaning slightly forward, had raised a large white hand, 
it waved, he spoke softly, deeply, commandingly. 

She was off, but whether the doze were natural or 
induced the hypnotist was not so sure. What needed 
doing must be done quickly. People were passing 
in the corridor. The crumpled telegram gave St. 
Lopez only, to which he already had learnt she was 
bound. It was noted upon a card abstracted from 
the case in the reticule. This would do for the present. 
He regretted that business with an estate agent in 
Paris forbade his following up and improving the 
acquaintance. 

Young Winterbourne, meanwhile, was feeling the 
ignominy of his position. This was the first com- 
patriot whom he had met; he would be everlastingly 


1 16 


Who Laughs Last 

running up against English people, and sooner or later 
would be driven to explanations. Some one a little 
extra inquisitive would have to be told that he was no 
longer Lieutenant Winterbourne of the East Wessex, 
but that particularly poor devil, a remittance-man, an 
exile, “doing time,” a “lifer” he supposed, unless 
things turned out better than Sam intended. (Wire!) 

At this period of his troubles the lad saw no light 
ahead from any point of view. He was sitting back 
in his comer of the carriage grimly repeating to himself 
Henley’s 11 Out of the night that covers me , ” fretting at 
his imperfect remembrance of the second line of the 
third quatrain. “Bother!” He had spoken aloud. 
Mr. Masson looked up with a question. “The 
lady? — Oh, some one whom I met in the hunting-field 
the last time I was out. Funny thing, I cannot recall 
her name. I am not sure I was introduced. The 
thing was a bit informal. I found her thrown out, 
and put her into her chaperon’s hands, you see. A 
Mrs. or Miss . . . Oh, blow! I have seen the person a 
score of times (I mean the chaperon), a welter-weight 
she must be; but her name. . . . It will come to me 
directly. 4 The Cowdrays ’ is her place, Lower Whap- 
shot. Mr. Masson took no interest in the name of the 
lady’s chaperon. The lady herself had attracted him ; 
he could not recollect meeting her before (if ever, it 
must have been casually, as that afternoon, certainly 
not in society), but her face conveyed a curious im- 
pression of familiarity, probably coincidental. The 
topic flickered out for the time. 

As the train ran through the rowans and grey-green 
sheets of sea-buckthorn near Le Touquet, Billy sat 
forward and said: 

“Mrs. Bohun, sir.” 


Chances of the Road 


117 


“Eh, what? Pardon me ” 

“The name of the lady who mounted that girl we 
met at the buffet, y’know: Mrs. Bohun of The Cow- 
drays, Whapshot. Quite a well-known person, rather 
in the swim, I fancy; goodish sort, and all that.” 
Masson listened attentively and softly repeated the 
name to himself ; it, too, connoted something to which 
he had temporarily mislaid the clue. After a minute 
of hard thinking he decided that neither the younger 
lady nor her people were his concern, and proposed 
dinner in the restaurant car. 


CHAPTER X 

DEVELOPMENTS AT THE BASE 

“/^OOD afternoon, Mrs. Lambkin. My father 
vJ would like to hear a little more about this 
delayed or mislaid letter ; just what did occur, in fact. ” 
There are people who can inflame the simplest 
situation with suspicion, who can make a natural and 
reasonable inquiry offensive, who can get upon one’s 
nerves with a “Well?” and pull your nose with an 
exclamatory-incredulous ‘ ‘ Ah ? ’ ’ Mr. Samuel Winter- 
bourne, always with the best motives, was of the un- 
holy company of inquisitors. Upon his bench day 
he was wont to punctuate the clerk’s examination in 
chief with pointed queries of his own, and to relieve 
his colleagues of all share in the work. He elicited 
some truth : he discovered a few mare’s-nests ; he was 
detested and feared by the police, welcomed by the 
reporters. Here, over the teacups at Hornbeams, he 
was for what he called getting to the bottom of what 
after all was a small domestic mishap, easily explicable 
to, and already condoned by, his father, full of sus- 
picion to himself. At its worst the occasion seemed one 
for putting an old servant in her right place, for one of 
those painful little readjustments, dear to the hearts 
of our Mr. Samuels, male and female, who seldom 
118 


Developments at the Base 119 

leave unimproved an opportunity for the assertion of 
superiority. 

Mrs. Lambkin, bettering her first intention, had 
handed over Billy’s letter with explanations and 
regrets which had sufficed for her old master. Where 
did Mister Sam come in? she was silently asking her- 
self as she faced the man across the table. That her 
back had been put up by the form of his opening goes 
without saying; its implication that her account of 
the occurrence had concealed or misrepresented the 
circumstances was, and may have been, intended to 
be, wounding. (Sam’s way : “ We must probe, gentle- 
men, if we mean to get to the truth of things. We are 
not placed upon the commission to spare our own or 
other people’s feelings, eh?”) 

A witness with a good conscience and a cool 
head, who has told the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth at the outset, is in a strong position, 
and can sometimes afford to play with counsel who 
proposes to force unlocked doors and disrobe naked 
simplicity. 

Mrs. Lambkin, an intuitive judge of character, 
knew Mr. Samuel very much better than he knew 
himself, or her. She also understood his father, and 
perceived by his attitude that this interview was a 
matter in which his wishes had been overborne, and 
that she could count upon his sympathy if not upon 
his support. She, at least, never irritated him; up 
to a certain point a perfect comprehension existed 
between them. This sympathy it should be her study 
to preserve by carrying herself lowly towards Mr. 
Samuel, and allowing that somewhat headstrong 
gentleman to overleap himself. When he had carried 
things too far her turn might come. 


120 


Who Laughs Last 

Lifting the hem of her black apron with simulated 
nervousness she allowed her eyes to rove from son to 
father and back again to the son before she replied in 
her lowest and gentlest accents that she hardly under- 
stood, that Mr. Winterbourne had heard already all 
that there was to tell. What might Mr. Samuel 
mean? 

Anything of the nature of delay or hesitation 
aroused Mr. Samuel’s suspicion. Scenting the latent 
and clandestine he sprang in pursuit: which was 
precisely what the lady intended. 

“Really, Mrs. Lambkin,” he recommenced, and 
that “really” was an added offence, for it implied 
that whilst the question had been genuine the answer 
was wanting in the quality of reality. “I must say 
I thought I was plain enough. Just tell Mr. Winter- 
bourne, and me, what — did — happen to that letter.” 

“With pleasure, Mister Samuel, I’m sure,” said 
Mrs. Lambkin, and in her lowest, clearest, and most 
restrained tone re-stated the facts. 

This, of course, was not good enough for her ques- 
tioner, who was convinced that more lay behind and 
set about to find it. 

“Yes, yes, of course, that is what you told my 
father — ” he paused. Mrs. Lambkin regarded him 
blankly; he was forced to proceed farther along the 
provocative line which he had chosen. The old man 
lifted a hand, kept it poised for a moment, but dropped 
it upon his knee without opening his lips. Samuel 
did not or would not recognise the action. 

“You say it was wet — I am speaking of the day 
before yesterday?” He paused again for some sign 
from the woman, but beyond regarding her examiner 
with steady composure none was given. The morning 


Developments at the Base 121 

in question had been wet, the fact did not depend 
upon Mr. Samuel’s recollection, nor did she feel it 
necessary to reassert it. He hemmed irritably and 
resumed. 

“Who clears the letter-box?’’ 

“I do, sir.” 

“And you wish me to believe that on that morning, 
the first delivery, I mean, some accident had occurred 
outside, and that the letters had been dropped in the 
mud, and were so soiled and stuck together that it 
was necessary to dry them before taking them to my 
father’s bedside?” 

“Some of them were, sir. ” 

“Some? Was the mail such an extensive affair 
as all that? And, apart from the dry envelopes, you 
wish me to believe that there was such a mass of wet, 
muddied stuff that you entirely failed to notice this 
envelope amongst the rest?” 

“I didn’t notice it at the time, sir. It was be- 
tween a couple of larger envelopes, and I never ” 

“What sort of envelopes, if you please?” 

“Circulars, sir, or ” 

“Yes, or ?” 

“You might call them prospectuses, Mr. Samuel.” 

“No doubt I might, and should, if they were pro- 
spectuses; but the point is that my father cannot re- 
call any dirtied letters being brought to him at that 
time, or since, except this one, you know. Where are 
these — er — circulars or prospectuses?” 

“Burnt, sir, They were of no consequence ” 

“Burnt? No consequence? Do you admit, then, 
that you occasionally destroy or conceal my father’s 
correspondence? ” 

“No, sir.” 


122 Who Laughs Last 

“But you have just confessed that upon this occa- 
sion you did.” 

“No, sir.” 

“The prospectuses may not have been addressed 
to me, Sam,” suggested the old man, but the other, 
always impatient of interruption, acknowledged the 
suggestion by a sniff, and, dismissing the possibility 
of a servant being the recipient of such documents, 
swept forward. 

“Attend to me, if you please,” he resumed, as 
though the quietly-concentrated attention of the 
woman had needed enforcing. “My father received 
no prospectuses by that post, nor later in the day. 
None have been brought to him, wet or dry since. 
How do you reconcile that with your statement that 
there were several prospectuses, or a mass of dirty 
prospectuses in the letter-box? ‘A mass,’ now? 
Take your time, please, this is important, Mrs. Lamb- 
kin, ” said Mr. Samuel in his best magisterial manner. 

“You must excuse me, sir, but you are putting words 
out of your own mouth into mine. I said nothing 
about a mass, or of several. They was your expres- 
sions. There was, to the best of my recollection, 
six prospectuses as had been dropped in the mud.” 

“Yes, yes?” 

“And all was for the servants’ hall, sir.” 

“There, Sam, I told you so,” muttered the father, 
but the son pressed on with growing annoyance. 

“Pray don’t interrupt, father! Now, Mrs. Lamb- 
kin — six prospectuses by one post? Is that not a 
most unusual allowance? Come now? Are you quite 
sure? To whom were these six prospectuses (six, you 
say) addressed?” 

“Three was for myself, sir. ” 


Developments at the Base 123 

“In-deed? And the others were for ?” 

“Reely, sir, this is going beyond everything! If 
you want to look over the servants’ letters you must 
do it for yourself. I have no control over what my 
master’s servants write, or who writes to them; and 
would n’t undertake it. Perhaps, sir, ” turning to her 
master, “you will allow me to send up the maids? 
Mr. Samuel hevidently ” 

Both men spoke together. The younger man 
stridently accusing the woman of having intention- 
ally misled him, of having tried to make a fool of him. 
His father quietly, with lifted hand, intimated that he 
was, and always had been, quite satisfied, and gave 
her permission to leave the room. 

Mrs. Lambkin thanked her master and withdrew 
with unmoved countenance, and without replying to 
Mr. Samuel’s reproaches. She had fooled him to the 
top of his bent. Crossing the hall she made sure that 
the women were overhead before setting her ear to 
the hinge of the baize door. If she knew her old 
master and Mister Sam she had left them with the 
materials of a pretty little quarrel between them. 

“There, Sam, and I trust you are satisfied. I wish 
you would consider my comfort. It is I who have to 
live with these people, not you, and if you set ” 

“Yes, yes! And you believe? I don’t. There’s 
more behind. You should keep the key of the letter- 
box. Start a locked mail-bag; I ’ll see the postmaster 
about it to-day. No? You won’t? Why?” 

“Because I see no cause for it,” rousing. “My 
people are good enough for me. No, I’m not going 
to begin a quarrel with them, a top-to-bottom upset 
and notice all round, at my time of life. Thanks!” 


124 


Who Laughs Last 

“And you believe in these six prospectuses; all by 
one post? Absurd!” 

“Your suspicions are far more absurd. How many 
rubber companies have sent you ? ” 

“Oh, that is different — my position entitles — 
though as I ’ve never applied for an allotment from 
the first I get none now. Don’t believe in the boom. 
Never did.” 

“Mrs. Lambkin may have been caught. How do 
you know? If she ” 

“If she is rubbering it is high time she went. If I 
thought a man on our staff ” 

“Charr’h! You are unreasonable! And I must 
say, Sam, that such an exhibition as this does you very 
little credit. Yes!” pulling himself up in his chair, 
“you show so little tact, so little sympathy, that you 
get everybody against you, and make your way need- 
lessly difficult, I should think. (And as I hear, for I 
still hear a good deal )” 

“Go on, father, pray go on!” murmured Mr. Sam- 
uel with the severe, long-suffering forbearance of the 
misconstrued. 

“And I will go on. It is for your good, Sam. You 
fill everybody’s post. You are always right. Your 
motives are always unimpeachable. You never make 
a mistake (this is what I hear), and yet, somehow, you 
are most unpopular. (And respected, and feared. 
Oh, yes ! Admitted !) And I want to know where this 
line leads? You are in opposition to so many, and 
in so many directions, that some day, when you want 
a friend, or a backing, Sam, you will find none forth- 
coming. ” 

“Thank you, sir. I ’m sure you mean well, 
but ” 


Developments at the Base 125 

“But (wait a minute) this is all beside the question. 
What does it matter to me, or to you, whether my 
people here are rubbering like the rest? or how that 
letter of poor Billy’s got mislaid? The thing I am 
looking at is that the boy having written, as we now 
know he did, stating his intentions at the time, or 
before, puts a wholly different face upon the matter. 
Masson wrote me from Aldershot that there was n’t 
five pounds’ worth of debts. He has paid his way. 
His colonel and the majors and adjutant regard him 
as the very steadiest and quietest fellow in the mess. 

. . . Quite cut up and concerned at losing him. 
Then the amount, as the boy urged, is ridiculous, and 
would be detected instantly if he had n’t advised his 
having done it. Oh, I know all about the seriousness 
— knew it before you were bom, so we need not thrash 
out that again. I can conceive, if you can’t, a boy 
too ignorant of business to recognise the enormity of 
it. Fact is Billy has been too steady — never got 
dipped, never had to exchange cheques with another 
young fellow, or give, or back, a bill, and this — this 
is his first mistake, and between us — but you most, 
Sam — you most — we have misjudged the boy and 
used him very — very hardly!” The old man paused. 
Samuel, for once, refrained. His father resumed. 
“No fresh cheques of his (on my account, I mean) 
have been presented? No. Well, then, granting 
everything you could say (don’t interrupt me, if you 
please), I say again I deeply regret what we — you — 
have done. I can neither sleep nor eat. I feel we 
have ruined the boy’s career, put him out of his chosen 
profession, and sent him abroad upon an unfortunate 
misconstruction. Acted far too precipitately, far!” 

“And what do you suppose the money was for? 


126 


Who Laughs Last 

Even a subaltern does n’t forge for the fun of the 
thing, one must suppose.” 

“It may have been to oblige a friend. This Pal- 
grave, the payee, is another steady fellow. Masson 
assures me so. Bears an excellent name. Limited 
private means, is his information. And between our- 
selves, Sam, I may as well say that I object to the 
word you have just used. Kindly don’t speak of 
forgery to me again in connection with your brother. ” 

“ It is that, father, and nothing else. Why dispute 
about terms when we have the proof in our hands.” 

“The proof, as you pleased to call it, no longer 
exists. ” 

“You don’t mean to say, sir, that you have ?” 

“Burnt, Sam.” 

“Never! You have n’t surely! Well, I must 


“ What must you say ? I noticed you were most 
unwilling to allow me to retain possession of the thing.” 

“I was. I deeply regret giving it up to you. My 
hesitation was justified. I was wrong. ...” 

“To have allowed me the spending of a hundred 
pounds of my own? Upon my word! What are we 
getting to? Or, rather, where are you going to?” 
The old lion was getting his haunches under him, 
measuring his distance; Abraham Winterbourne’s 
“pounce” had been celebrated; whilst others debated 
he sprang. He had grown younger during the last 
few minutes, his voice gaining power, his attitude 
decision, but his son was not watching him ; absorbed 
in his own chagrins he hardly attended to the next 
few words that his father spoke. “Your feeling in 
this matter is one you could hardly avow, I should 
imagine. Is your regret at the loss of that piece of 


Developments at the Base 127 

paper due to regard for me? Or dislike to your 
brother? Wilbraham, I must remind you, is my son, 
and very dear to me, but I won’t enter into my feel- 
ings towards him; you would n’t understand. I 
shall recall him at once. ” 

“You can hardly do that, father. You gave me 
your word. Six months it was to be at the least. Yes, 
I feel that I cannot release you. I must hold you to 
an agreement which may, or may not, have been 
entered into by us both — both, I repeat — under a 
certain amount of misapprehension, as to which again 
I am not at one with you. For I still, and shall always 
regard Wilbraham’s escapade as a most serious dere- 
liction (I refrain from using the word to which you 
somewhat unreasonably take exception), but I am 
not going to have the boy about the place until he has 
seen his conduct in its proper light and realised the 
gravity of it. No.” 

“Oh, you object, do you? You won’t release me 
from 1 my agreement, ’ as you are pleased to call it — 
won’t you? Isn’t this rather a new departure for 
us, Sam? I don’t recollect such — I am not accus- 
tomed to being ” 

“You force me to take a line I deeply regret, father. 
Pardon my saying what gives me the deepest pain, 
that you have reached a time of life. ...” 

“When I am no longer fit to be my own master? 
No, you did not say it in those words, but that is your 
meaning. Now, listen to me. You have said a good 
deal too much. I was about to propose bringing the 
boy home and putting him into the bank. . . . Don’t 
interrupt me, if you please, or, if you like to close this 
conversation at this point you are quite at liberty 
to go; if you will stay you must listen, that is all. 


128 


Who Laughs Last 

4 You won’t have him in the bank?’ Isn’t that a 
trifle strong, Sam? Think. Well, if you won’t, 
I must make it up to him in another way. As you 
know, I had not intended altering my will ” 

Mr. Samuel had arisen, was standing before the 
hearth regarding the ceiling with an air of curbed 
displeasure. It had come upon him that he had made 
a mess of this interview, that somehow as he had 
failed with his father’s housekeeper he had failed 
with his father. The old man, of late manageable, 
was again more like what his son could remember him 
five years back, before his last illness, when he still 
clung to a larger share of the control of the Concern 
than the junior partner had thought him capable of 
rightly exercising, and regrettable scenes had been 
not infrequent. Yes, he had perhaps said too much, 
but to retract was not Mr. Samuel’s way; he bent, 
slightly. 

“Really, father, you must not misunderstand me. 
You know as well as I do that for years past I have 
been the Concern. I don’t complain, but the fact 
remains that I do carry the connection. Wentworth 
gives me a free hand, why cannot you? You, who 
know me so much better! I don’t ask for a larger 
share, I don’t ask for help; it is a pleasure to me to 
serve you. But can you wonder at my resenting a 
proposal to bring into the thing, under any circum- 
stances, just at present, I mean, at all events, a 
young man who — eh? In justice to my years of 
service, sir!” 

This was better, but came too late. Tell an old 
man anything except that he is past it, until, as a 
matter of fact, he is past resenting the insult. If he 
be not, if any reserve of power be still in him, stand 


Developments at the Base 129 

from under. Should he take your action passionately, 
it is bad; should he hear you through with grim 
courtesy it is likely to be worse. Mr. Samuel, quite 
unaccustomed to considering the feelings of others, 
was but imperfectly aware of what he had done. He 
had the wit to close the interview at this point, not 
without misgivings of eventualities which he held it 
due to himself to take measures to forest all. 

Masson was abroad by this time, as he supposed, 
nor was he for the present accessible ; ; as to any funda- 
mental changes in the tenor of his father’s will, he 
knew enough of that document to feel confident that 
the old gentleman would not disturb it without long 
and serious conferrings with his trusted lawyer. But 
a man may do a good deal of damage by a codicil. 
He would act in a precautionary sense betimes. 

Since the night attack of lumbago five years before 
which had rendered Mr. Abraham Winterbourne 
unable to reach his bedroom door to admit Mrs. 
Lambkin and the doctor, he had never again bolted 
himself in. A door unlocked, and dependent upon 
the integrity of the latch, may, as we all know, fall 
ajar if imperfectly closed; and this befell the door of 
Mr. Winterbourne’s bedroom a couple of days sub- 
sequently to his difference with his elder son. The 
latch gave, the door eased, and remained to all intents 
shut, but was in reality the fraction of an inch ajar, 
held in position by the portiere. Thus disposed it 
admitted the small household sounds incidental to 
the early hours of a spring morning. Mr. Winter- 
bourne, a light sleeper, lying in the warm dusk of his 
curtained four-poster, was aware that his housemaids 
were dusting the bannisters and sweeping the landing 
without, and attributed his sensibility to their move- 


9 


130 Who Laughs Last 

ments and conversation to the right cause, but, as 
their muted tones and gentle movements in no way 
disturbed his progress from one half-doze to the next, 
felt no impatience to arise and close that door, nor to 
raise his voice to request one of them to do so. Every- 
body who has accidentally overheard the familiar 
talk of domestic servants unrestrained by the presence 
of their employer will recognise, as did Mr. Winter- 
bourne, that the acquired service-voice is replaced 
by a lower dialect, and the vocabulary of the drawing- 
room by the provincialisms, pronunciation, and eli- 
sions of the village. Hence it was in this sort that the 
housemaids spoke. 

“ — pretty gyme, ain’t it? And forbid to mention 
it to Mrs. Lambkin, eh? Did he tell ye that too? As 
if we was likely to tell the old ’ooman anything! Eh? 
What was it he says to you?” 

“Oh, he begins about the old master failin’ like, 
and all that. Not as I ’ve seen anything much differ- 
ent this long while, have you? Then he goes on to 
say as it was just possible as the old gentleman would 
be asking two of us up to witness his signing of his 
name, a thing I was on no account whatever to take 
part in. ’* 

“Syme to me, much in them words, with this, as 
his father was no longer in a position to transack 
business, and must be protected from making mistakes 
until he could be present hisself, or Mr. Masson. So 
I was to say, as I ’d rather not, if he ’d excuse me, hear 
the bell go, or anything. Or, if there was no getting 
out of it, do it and let him know nex’ time he come, 
or even write to him. Fancy! Don’t see meself 
writing much, somehow. Eh? Same wif Halice, 
wasn’t it? And, did he? — I thought so! It ran 


Developments at the Base 13 1 

to . . . ” a giggle. “ Dint it? ‘ Syme ’ere! ’ as the boy 
says. That was all right, no fear! Yes , ma'am, 
coming /” 

As a man of experience, Mr. Abraham Winterbourne 
could fill in the blanks and roughly estimate the cash 
equivalent of that cryptic giggle. 

Let us revisit the bank for a minute upon the 
day following. Our Messrs. Haynes and Wadbury, 
seated upon their accustomed stools, are automatically 
casting interminable columns. Being skilled in their 
art it is second nature to both to carry a finger-nail 
down the rank of items, computing pounds, shillings, 
and pence at a single operation, chatting under their 
breaths meanwhile. 

“Where ’s Gilpin?” 

“Parlour, with old Mister W., witnessing signa- 
tures. ” 

“Ho, transfers? . . . Um, yum,” pencilling in a 
total. 

“Mister Samuel in?” 

“No. His morning on the Education Committee, 
is n’t it? Hillo! you are wanted!” The door of the 
parlour was open, a clerk, Gilpin, was signalling. Our 
Mr. Haynes slid from his stool and obeyed the sum- 
mons ; the old gentleman requires him for some reason. 
In less than a minute he was back and at work with 
a wry mouth and slowly shaken head, symptoms 
which our Mr. Wadbury rightly interpreted as feelers 
to elicit inquiries. He rose to the fly. 

“Well?” 

“What sort of transfer needs two witnesses?” 

“Government Stocks, Power of Attorney, er — 
other things one does.” 

“Think again, sonnie. Two , signin’ at the same 


132 


Who Laughs Last 

time in one another’s presences, in the presence of the 
what d’ ye call ’em, and at his request? Now then?” 

“ Ah, as bad as all that? Sorry for Gilpin and you, 
but never somehow fancied you two were in the run- 
nin’; was given to understand that it would be in 
my favour, dontcherknow. ” 

“Blighter! Well, here comes the testator. Looks 
uncommon up-to-the-knocker to-day, don’t he? 
Moves better, eh?” 

Mr. Abraham Winterbourne was certainly walking 
more firmly, was holding himself better. A quarrel 
braces some men like a tonic. He thanked the porter 
who held the door for him with a stronger and more 
decided voice, and was heard a moment later giving 
directions to Gossett, “East Wessex Hospital.” He 
got himself into the carriage without assistance. 

An hour later a member of the Education Com- 
mittee of Welbury Town Council slipped in late to a 
seat. Mr. Samuel Winterbourne was in the chair, 
and a rapid and efficient chairman he made. He knew 
the Act at least as well as the Town Clerk, had the 
histories and states of every Council school in his 
head, foresaw everything, provided for everything and, 
but for a dictatorial manner which occasionally got 
upon the nerves of new committee men, would have 
been ideal. 

Business was almost over. The final minute was 
put and carried. The Committee rose, the members 
dispersing slowly, chatting in groups. The late arri- 
val smiling caught Winterbourne’s eye and sidled 
towards him between the fixed seats. “Sorry you 
were n’t there — could n’t be in two places at once, 
I know. But it was an occasion, sir. Your good old 
father came out strong, sir. Like old times! You 


Developments at the Base 133 

know how that Infectious Diseases Isolation Hospital 
has hung fire? It is fairly launched now. Your 
father made an admirable little speech and gives 
us five hundred — I beg your pardon!” 

“It is too generous of my father, Mr. Payne, and I 
really think the Board was hardly justified in treating 
seriously a promise from a man of his age and failing 
powers of mind. ...” 

“ My dear sir ! Nobody who listened to him to-day 
would agree with you there; never saw or heard him 
to better advantage. ” 


CHAPTER XI 

MR. SAMUEL’S PREDICAMENT 

A WEEK passed and Mr. Samuel stood alone in the 
bank parlour a thoughtful and, for a wonder, 
an undecided man. His father had just left the room. 
Through the window he could hear his voice raised in 
converse with Gossett. The old man had reached 
down his overcoat without assistance, had declined his 
help, indeed, nor would accept his arm to the carriage. 
Nor, as a matter of fact, had seemed in need of it. 
His partner returning from a Corporation Committee 
had found the horses at the door and had perceived 
that his father must have visited the bank at an un- 
usual hour. Upon his entering the room the old 
gentleman had not raised his head from the financial 
article in the Times. He had acknowledged his son’s 
greeting with one curt word. Samuel, who could 
accuse himself of no unfilial conduct, regretted a 
growing coolness which dated from the exposure and 
punishment of his half-brother. That the line which 
he had taken in that matter was the right line he did 
not doubt ; he never doubted or went back upon him- 
self. He was spared that by the approval of a con- 
science which was always ready to assure him that he 
had acted as had seemed best at the time. If this 

134 


Mr. Samuel’s Predicament 


135 


crime of Wilbraham’s had to be dealt with over again 
he would act in precisely the same way. Mrs. Lamb- 
kin, a woman who had obtained an unwholesome 
influence over his father’s failing mind, he had treated 
as the occasion demanded. That the interview had 
been unsuccessful was to be regretted but was no 
fault of his. He was not the man to meet petulance 
with pique, or coldness with neglect. His father had 
shewn temper, and had thrown out what might be 
construed as threats. Deplorable as he felt it he had 
made no change in his behaviour and had hoped — 
But the affair had not blown over; the old man re- 
tained his anger, his son and partner was made to feel 
that his conduct was still resented, and his presence 
was no longer welcomed at Hornbeams, nor was the 
old gentleman’s manner towards him in this room what 
it had been. Mr. Samuel was not the man to accept 
the situation. He had courteously, but firmly, asked 
for an explanation. The elder man had heard him 
without raising his face from the page, had read on 
for a few lines, then in measured tones had replied 
that so far as he was concerned he conceived that no 
explanations were required and that he desired none. 
This method, the non-interrogative rebuff, closes your 
opening. Mr. Samuel had found it difficult to con- 
tinue the conversation. Then his father had left. 

What had been doing here? The blotting-pad upon 
the table shewed a confluent mass of impressions in 
reverse of his father’s signature. “ Humph, transfers, ” 
remarked Mr. Samuel, and felt easier. It did not 
occur to him to question or to warn the clerks. He 
would have shrunk from the self-exposure of the step, 
the possible scandal and injury to the Concern. He 
had heard nothing from the maids at Hornbeams. He 


136 Who Laughs Last 

trusted that his father had thought better of his half- 
formed intention, or was awaiting the return of Masson. 
Meanwhile, was there any other direction from which 
danger might be anticipated? In the comer of the 
room stood a small, old-fashioned safe used by his 
father, and more rarely by himself, for documents of 
a private nature unsuited to the bank vaults or strong- 
room. He disliked spying, or seeming even to him- 
self to spy upon his father’s doings, but decided that 
the occasion justified reasonable precautions. This 
was just the sort of repository in which the good, 
foolish old man would — Mr. Samuel was finding the 
key upon his bunch. He turned it and swung the 
small, weighty door. The interior was stuffed with 
packets of old documents, the sort one has no use for 
but hesitates to destroy. Nothing recent. He in- 
vestigated with a finger; something fell to the carpet, 
a copy of the firm’s partnership deed. He had not 
looked at the thing for many a year. The original 
would be in Masson’s strong-room in the City. Yes, 
that would be it: three sheets of vellum, sewn book- 
fashion with faded green silken riband, folded and 
tied with red tape. This last excited a momentary 
wonder; its behaviour hardly suggested that it had 
not been untied for a quarter of a century. He 
glanced at this page and that, and as he read his face 
grew less and less at ease, and presently refolding and 
retying the document he replaced it, locked the safe, 
and stood as we have found him standing before the 
hearth, thoughtful and undecided. Of course, he 
had known of that provision; it had been there long 
before his time, but his attention never having been 
called to it he had — well — forgotten all about it. Of 
course that clause had been in the deed when he had 


Mr. Samuel’s Predicament 


i37 


signed it. He and Wentworth (whose father had 
been alive then) had been admitted into partnership 
upon the same day, but hardly under that clause? 
Surely not! He dismissed the idea. Both must have 
read what they set their names to, naturally; but, 
naturally again, neither was at the moment in a 
position to dictate changes in the wording of the 
instrument or limitations of the executive of the 
senior partner. The clause had looked more reason- 
able then ; his father had stood at the time for so much, 
had seemed such a man, and had really been such a 
man, that to repose extraordinary confidence in him 
had not been so ill-judged as it was to-day. Old 
Wentworth must have known all about it. Besides, 
as he recalled some long-ago chat with his father upon 
the point, this special power reserved to the Head of 
the firm was no new thing. It had been exercised 
by old Mordaunt, and his father directly, and, in 
consequence, himself indirectly, were what they were 
by grace of it. Still, new occasions breed new issues, 
and a provision necessary and defensible at the crisis 
of the Concern’s existence forty years or so before 
was an anachronism to-day. The clause as it stood 
was a danger to the firm. It must be abrogated before 
any question as to its being put into force should arise. 
One does not leave firearms in the hands of a child, and 
in Mr. Samuel Winterbourne’s eyes, his senior partner 
was fast approaching second childhood. Other people 
might not see it, he, who knew his father better, did. 
Yes, abrogate; but how? Any alteration in a part- 
nership deed which has been in force for over forty 
years must needs be the subject of leisurely, friendly, 
and intimate consultations between the partners. 
Wentworth must be sounded before the matter was 


138 Who Laughs Last 

broached to the senior. But where was Wentworth? 
Mr. Samuel had no idea. The man might be in New 
Zealand, or Samoa, or Los Angeles; he might be upon 
the hills above Durban, or in Kashmir, or at Luxor, 
or Biskra, or upon the Riviera. Masson would know, 
but then, where was Masson? Upon the whole there 
was nothing to be done until Masson’s return, if then, 
and really Masson’s continued absence was almost 
unprofessional. But the business could not be rushed. 
Wentworth first; the father later. Yet, done it must 
be. Mr. Samuel found a waiting attitude unsatis- 
factory. His temperament was for action. 


CHAPTER XII 


AN EREMITE OF THE ROCK 

“ I REALLY don’t see where I can help you, Masson. 

1 ... Sorry, but I don’t. ” 

The speaker was one of those Englishmen who run 
to hair after fifty. The tumbled luxuriance of his 
locks would have excited the envy of a minor poet, 
but must have been unpleasantly warm in the Midi. 
Little jets of grey hair spurted from ear and nostril, 
dark eyes, shy and hostile, blinked at you from beneath 
down-curving, tufted brows. The forehead above 
them seemed to have been scored by cruel experiences, 
so deeply ploughed was it, so drawn by massive and 
irregular corrugations. A big, bluntly aquiline nose 
overhung a notable white moustache which lost itself 
in the Oriental masses of a beard which fell nearly to 
the waist and went encroaching upward upon throat, 
neck, and the last of the cheeks. The man might have 
sat for Father Christmas in trouble. Such a head 
throws the rest out of proportion, and in this case gave 
an air of undersize to respectable breadth of shoulder 
and sixty-eight inches of height. A Neptunian front 
demands a big bass voice to carry it off, hearty chest- 
notes, and vibrant timbre, but the man’s voice 
was low and weary, with tones of half-petulant 
despondency in its register. 

139 


140 


Who Laughs Last 

Major, or Monsieur Pennegwent, had sunk his 
military rank eighteen years since, and in sinking that 
had sunk so much beside that a less military figure 
would have been hard to find. He inhabited the 
Chateau Laruns, a small pile of sun-bleached stone 
perched upon an outcrop of rock at the head of a little 
valley filled by a fan-shaped vineyard which fell in 
steep terraces to a gully choked with bruylre , ilex, 
and tall reeds tangled up in nets of thorny smilax. 
The small building seemed moored to its platform by 
five gaunt old cypresses. From the thickness of its 
walls and the narrowness and fewness of its windows 
one judged that it had been planned for defence in 
less peaceful times and had a history. Having none, 
and lying wide of the rail, and twenty miles from the 
coast, it had gone cheap when its present occupant 
retired from the world and set up his hermit household 
at Callouris in 1 889 . 

The wall of its steeply-sloping garden suggested a 
ramp and could have been held against a mob by a 
few determined defenders ; it followed the lines of the 
jutting outcrop, filling in deficiencies with blocks of 
bigger stone than masons of to-day care to handle, 
but aloe and prickly pear were in charge, stopping 
fissures of their own making with bayonet points and 
brittle yellow needles amid which grey lizards basked 
and small bubble-throated green frogs climbed and 
clung with enviable immunity. The almost flat roof 
was covered with heavy brown tiles, rough as a 
ploughed field, piled three-fold to exclude sun. The 
small rooms of the silent place were chiefly devoted to 
art; unbound piles of the Studio and its French and 
German rivals encumbered the tiled floors; easels 
leaned against walls, palettes hung from pegs; mahl- 


An Eremite of the Rock 


141 

sticks and walking-canes, one with a hinged seat, a 
white umbrella and sword-cane, which gave itself 
away frankly, also an equally unmysterious walk- 
ing-stick-gun, stood in corners. Green portfolios, 
dusty and faded, bulged with the harvests of years, 
bits, impressions, memoranda, the inspirations of 
bygone hours, never opened by the artist, who 
had spent a third of his life in a climate trying to 
a man of the north, attempting the hopeless task 
of recapturing impossible effects, pure sunlight for 
one. 

That Masson and the recluse were old acquain- 
tances was obvious. The master of Laruns sat upon 
his bed, conceding to his guest the one chair in the 
room. Across the flagged landing a tiny dining- 
room was visible through open doors; in the four 
other living-rooms civilised existence was forbidden 
by accumulations of artistic output and properties. 
The ground-floor was the abode of the man-and-wife 
service of the establishment. 

The lawyer, who had come to the hermit for help, 
met refusal with the placid smile of a man who is sure 
of his ground, and sat on. The bearded man hunched 
upon the edge of the bed, his thin flexible hands play- 
ing a restless tattoo upon his knees, arose and stamped 
to the open door. “You lunch with me? That’s 
all right. . . . Bernardina! Below, there! . . . 
He sent his voice down the wide, corkscrew stair which 
served each floor in turn, and ended in a conical tourelle 
aloft, the notablest feature of an otherwise mean- 
faced building, and important enough for the larger 
dwelling which may have been originally planned. 
“ Ber-nar-dina ! — you hear me? Then, why the deuce 
don’t you reply? Cook two extra cutlets and get 


142 


Who Laughs Last 

up another bottle of the red. . . . No, Masson, ” he 
reseated himself, “ 1 ’m no good. ” 

“So you say, and I deny. What I have never 
condoned is your reprehensible want of caution. As 

my sole co- trustee you persist in ” 

“Trusting you — absolutely. What else would you 
have a fellow do? I know nothing of business, nor of 
law. But I know a man when I see him — You!" 

Masson laughed quietly. “Well, I have a man in 
the town here for you to see. ’’ He was cut short by 
the other’s roar of surprise and the raising of protest- 
ing hands. 

“Who? Where? What d’ye say? The devil 
and all! What next? I tell ye I won’t see him. I 
never see anybody, and you know it. ” 

“But you will see him, Pennegwent, for my sake; 
and presently you ’ll follow up the acquaintance for 
his sake; and later, for your own.” 

“The deuce, I shall?” 

“You will. He is a boy ” 

“A beastly boy? Good Lord! What use is a boy 
tome? or I to a boy?” 

“He is a soldier.” 

‘ ‘ Damnation ! that settles it . I ’ll not see him . I ’ll 
not risk it. He would. ... He would. You know 

he would, Masson! It is like this ” 

“Now, my dear friend, don't! We won’t travel 
over the old ground again. I know, and you know 
that I know ” 

“You don’t, you can’t ! ” The speaker grew agitat- 
ed, his thin, long, flexible fingers interlaced and freed 
themselves every moment. “Here I live and draw 
and draw, and think and think; but at nights when I 
can’t draw it all throws up, and I go over the whole 


An Eremite of the Rock 


M3 


damn thing again point by point, and try every parti- 
cular. And, ’pon my soul, Masson, after eighteen 
years I still cannot see ” 

“Where you went wrong? Nor can I,” assented 
the other with conviction in his voice. 

“ No. But you are a civilian and don’t count. It 
is nice of you, and you mean it, and I thank you, but 
your opinion simply don’t reckon a damn, Masson. 
And my service, which does count, judged me without 
ever hearing me, and its judgment stands. Oh, 
I ’ve got it all here!” He waved a long thin arm 
towards shelves loaded with manuscript note-books. 
“It is all set down there, the absolute, ultimate facts. 
When I ’m dead and gone they shall know what did 
happen, and what I was, and what he was. It makes 
a biggish book. I ’ve tried this publisher and that; 
they shy at the risks, and it would break me to do it 
on my own. A fellow must live. These things don’t 
sell : I try and I try, but I can only draw what I see. 
Oil is not good enough as a medium. I 'm on water- 
colours now, but they don’t go, and I am disgustingly 
poor, or should be if I stepped out of my shell. I have 
made you my executor with directions to publish, if 
the estate runs to it, of course, and discretion, of 
course; you are the discreetest man I ever met. But 
there ought to be no real risk in publishing a plain 
statement of facts. I tell you for the hundredth 
time” — Masson bowed a patient assent — “that the 
order to surrender was not mine. He dictated every 
word I wrote. Naturally, I expected him to sign it. 
That is where I was wrong. I trusted the fellow, and 
had begun most unwillingly to carry out his orders, 
when, as you know, the head of the relief-column 
showed in the gut of the pass just in time. Too late 


144 


Who Laughs Last 

for me ! Here I am. He gave me away at the inquiry ; 
repudiated the written directions, said he was never 
consulted, was ill, too ill to know what I was doing! 
(He was out of sorts, we were all sick, rotten with 
fever, and low from quarter-rations, but he was no 
worse than the rest.) It was one man’s word against 
another’s. He was a Guards general, he got home 
first, invalided; I stayed out there and knew nothing 
of what he was doing. He got the ear of the Horse 
Guards, he was supported by the Household Brigade; 
he was their man; Society backed him. He slandered 
me in his clubs. I was retired at forty, Masson, 
think!” 

“I know! Why dwell upon what is so painful to 
remember?” 

“ You know? What does a civilian know about 
operations? That relief was the water-jump, the 
star- turn of the campaign : just as the lowering of our 
colours and the making arrangements for despatching 
a parliamentaire was its blemish. The insanity of it! 
Never surrender, never treat with an Asiatic! I told 
him my view. I put it as strongly as discipline would 
admit. We should have had our throats cut within 
an hour of piling arms. I implored the fellow to 
hold out for another day even, but he was in a twitter- 
ing funk, and I was helpless. One must obey one’s 
C.O., you know. Or rather, you don’t; what does 
the British public understand of military matters? 
Tell me that! What they do understand, confound 
’em, is the finding of a scapegoat. Always did! 
Think of Whitelock at Buenos Ayres! — ruined! A 
fellow of no family like myself, such men are cheap, 
only fit to be chucked to the newspapers! A Society 
man, one of the Right Sort, y’ know, must be sup- 


An Eremite of the Rock 


145 


ported, eh, Masson? Is n’t that the cry? Hasn’t it 
always been? The Whitelock-Leveson-Gower busi- 
ness at Buenos Ayres, eh? So my C.O. got his coat 
of whitewash (his doctor perjured himself, swore 
that the general was delirious, unconscious of what he 
was doing, and could not have dictated the order) — 
I went under. ” 

The soft, plaintive voice, which sorted so ill with the 
man’s appearance, drooped and ceased. His visitor 
regarded him with compassion. He had heard all 
this before, not once nor twice. His visit was medi- 
cinal; had he brought the right medicine? Suddenly 
the head was thrown back, the tufted brows arose, 
the voice broke forth again: “No man ever loved his 
profession more than I did. I worked at native 
languages — Marathi, Urdu, Persian! I studied com- 
missariat and transport, my mule-saddle was accepted 
and sealed: I read up tactics, I sent my name along 
for every expedition that was going. Twice I was 
mentioned in despatches, I was a full captain at twenty- 
four and had a name, otherwise, should I have been 
pitchforked up to be aide to that high-bom idiot who 
knew nothing about his profession beyond what is 
needful for dancing attendance at Windsor? He had 
influence, he could make interest. I am a nobody,” 
he groaned himself out again. “And you want to 
exhibit me to some deed boy?” 

“Pennegwent, I want you to help me to help a 
broken fellow, worse used even than yourself, if that 
be possible. A youngster quartered here upon re- 
mittance by his friends, under a pitiable misappre- 
hension. ” 

“Broke, is he? Humph — the man’s people are 
more likely to be right than you. What do you know 


10 


146 


Who Laughs Last 

of the case? (Unprofessionally, I mean, of course.) 
And — er — how did his people hear of Callouris? 
Did they select this especial spot to interne the fellow 
in, or did you? You, of course! and in choosing my 
neighbourhood were you reckoning upon me?” 

"I was.” 

“The deuce!” 

Masson crossed his thin legs, enlaced the upper 
knee with nervous bony fingers, and smiled firmly in 
the face of his host, who withdrew one hand from a 
jacket pocket to paw his beard meditatively. “You 
think I owe you one. Suppose I do, what line do you 
want me to take with this jackanapes?” 

“That I leave to yourself. I shall not introduce 
you. I have said nothing to the boy. I shall not 
even tell you his name. To push him up against you 
would set his back up higher than I have set yours.” 
He laughed ; Pennegwent scowled comically . ‘ ‘ Where ? 
No, don’t tell me! I shall see him within a day or 
two. There won’t be a dozen subalterns loafing 
about the locality. He will be going to old Billot’s, 
the notary’s, for his money on Mondays, no doubt. 
I ’ll scrape acquaintance and let you know how he 
frames. Ugh! I shall hate it. A boy! What the 
devil can I talk about?” 

“ Find out for yourself! And now I have a proposi- 
tion. Give me a couple of those portfolios. ” 

“ Wha-at? I beg your pardon ! ” 

“Yes. Unless I am quite mistaken I have found 
you a public. Oh, it is not upon my own judgment 
I am going, I ’ve a man behind me who understands 
art. I don’t. ” 

“ Stuff ! Y ou are the only man who ever understood 
mine. And so you have infected somebody. Some 


An Eremite of the Rock 


147 


one likes my technique? sees something in my clean 
shadows and dazzling high lights? So I am to come 
into notice at last, am I? I don’t believe it!” 

“Believe what you like, so long as you entrust me 
with enough of your work to make a little exhibition. 
I ’ve bespoken a room off Bond Street for May, and 
one of the best men in Bond Street is in it. How did 
I do it? I didn’t. It is you — you , not I at all! 
My part in the business was hanging those drawings 
which you gave me in my private office in place of 
some brown old prints of Lord Chancellors and Mas- 
ters of the Rolls of which I had grown tired. A client 
noticed them, was struck with their power, and the 
rest you can understand. I don’t think I shall tell 
you what the man said, but if I had had no other 
business as far south as this I think I must have come 
for those portfolios. So, my friend, make up your 
mind to be one of the stars of a London season, and 
pack me up not less than two hundred of your best, 
and let your views of Old Hy&res from la colline be 
among them. And, by the way, I suppose you have 
heard nothing from our poor friend Wentworth 
lately?” 

“Nothing,” replied Pennegwent, bending over a 
portfolio. 


CHAPTER XIII 


KIDNAPPED 

M ILLICENT WENTWORTH slept late and 
wakened with a vague unpleasant impression 
of strange surroundings. We may recall that the 
lady had made a bad Channel-passage, and although 
an experienced traveller had passed a sleepless night. 
The train at the Gare de Lyons was made up late, 
the officials were off-hand in such contradictory an- 
swers as they pleased to give, and she had difficulty 
in finding the seat reserved for her, and still more in 
securing it when found. The compartment was full 
and the voluble Russian woman in possession declined 
to vacate what she had usurped ; her reiterated argu- 
ment being, “But, then, where am I to place myself, 
me? ’’ Lethargy upon the part of the staff, delay and 
disorder, irritation, abruptness, and indiscipline upon 
the part of the travelling public are not conducive to 
a pleasant journey. As a matter of fact, a strike 
was imminent and the train made slow work of it to 
Lyons, and lost time steadily as the new day broke 
over the interminable reaches of the Rhone Valley. 
Weary-eyed and stiff the girl saw the square mass of 
the papal palace at Avignon pass, and still more 
wearily beheld the afternoon sun setting the horizon 
148 


Kidnapped 149 

aquiver above the pebbly desert of the delta, with its 
dead towns and churches hull down in the distance 
and a hare scudding beside the train. Hours and 
hours late in the swiftly-falling darkness the train 
stopped at St. Lopez. Mrs. Wentworth was awaiting 
her, more stepmotherly than usual, just not visiting 
the annoyances of a half-day’s delay upon the tired- 
out girl. “But why have you met me? I could have 
found my. ...” “There, don’t let us say another 
word about it. The service is too awful since the 
State took it over. Your father? Oh, quite as usual. 
Picked up again in no time. Certainly ; presently, my 
dear ! Now, are these all ? ” 

It was a covered carriage although the evening was 
dry and warm. Millicent, suspecting nothing, and 
kept in constant chat by her companion, took no 
notice of the direction in which she was being taken 
through dark, tree-shaded roads. Then had come a 
sharp turn into an ill-paved lane, a gap in a high wall, 
a close-smelling little house, and a hurried meal, over 
which she nodded wearily. Mr. Wentworth was 
dining out, would certainly not return until very late. 
She retired, postponing unpacking until the morning. 

She awoke physically rested but with a singular 
prevision of trouble. For some moments the girl 
could not place herself nor remember how she had 
come to be where she was. Then identity, locality, 
and her yesterday’s experiences rushed in upon her 
and she sat up and surveyed her surroundings. Where 
upon earth was she? For this, surely, was not the 
room to which she had been shown. If it were, what 
had become of the other half of it? The folding- 
doors which had divided the alcove with the bed from 
the bureau, by which her boxes had been placed, were 


i50 


Who Laughs Last 

shut. She tried the handle. Locked! She rapped. 
No one answered. Some clothes lay upon a chair, 
but not her own. The louvred shutters of the French 
window were closed, but gave to her handling, showing 
a neglected square of overgrown garden within a high 
stone wall overtopped by trees, with between them 
here and there a white column or cross, or rusting 
iron finial. On two sides the little property appeared 
to be surrounded by a campo santo , which later she 
decided must be closed. Upon the third a barrier of 
ancient cypresses, a wind-break, stood so closely as to 
be impervious to sun or light. Further investigation 
from the window yielded nothing of interest at the 
time. The girl took stock of her room. It was low- 
ceiled, and if not actively yet passively unclean. The 
paper upon the walls, the paint upon the doors, and 
woodwork needed renewing. The furniture was 
lower-middle-class French, and forty years old if a 
day. Miss Wentworth, accustomed to good hotels, 
could not imagine her father taking such quarters, 
even for a week. Why should he, with well-appointed 
caravanserais all along the Riviera, put up with hous- 
ing as bare and comfortless as she ever remembered 
in the Colonies? 

Further inspection disclosed the disquieting facts 
that if the underclothing were her own the frock was 
not, and that her money, watch and such jewellery 
as she had worn whilst travelling were gone. The 
room had another door, but whether this communi- 
cated with a landing stair, or merely a closet, she could 
not determine, it was locked. 

The position was ridiculous rather than alarming. 
Millicent Wentworth was a young woman of spirit, 
who had seen more of life than most girls of her age. 


Kidnapped 151 

She had moved in good society both at home and in 
the Colonies, having come out somewhat informally 
but early, in consequence of her mother’s feeble 
health and her father’s unsettled life. She had met 
men of all degrees, and their women, from Colonial 
governors to kanakas, and lodged in every kind of 
accommodation from a shack to the H6tel Mdtropole 
and a good country house at home, hence she was 
not alarmed. The heavy-faced, black-haired waiting- 
woman who had helped the cocker with her trunks, 
and appeared with the tray, must have taken her 
frock to brush and returned it to the wrong room. 
The house had overslept itself. She rapped and 
called again. There were low voices below, a step 
upon uncarpeted stairs, somebody was coming. The 
single door opened, her stepmother entered, closed it 
behind her, and stood with her back to it. 

The second Mrs. Wentworth had been strikingly 
beautiful in her youth; she had had a remarkably 
fine figure and had carried herself well. As a young 
middle-aged woman she was still attractive and could 
make up magnificently. In the abandon of private 
life, especially after a bad day at the tables, she let 
herself go and was formidable. She was intentionally 
formidable as she confronted her stepdaughter, and 
let herself go of set purpose. In each of us a thousand 
strains combine, and ancestries forgotten or unknown 
compete for mastery. This woman’s passionate 
courage, unscrupulous cunning, sensuous beauty, and 
craving for excitement may well have been drawn 
from some Roman empress to whom to see was to 
desire, and to desire was to will the whole catena of 
means which should lead on to possessions. That low, 
broad forehead, level brows, short upper lip, and per- 


152 


Who Laughs Last 

feet nose (the one feature which retained its modelling) 
spoke of race. Octavia Wentworth had always 
despised her stepdaughter, disliking her with the 
jealousy bom of knowledge that she was in turn 
despised. Her efforts to supplant the child in the 
father’s affections had failed, recoiling upon her own 
position with results which could no longer be blinked. 
Her world was closing in upon her, gate after gate had 
shut. Her way out, the one exit to ease, wealth, and 
the life that she understood and lusted to live, lay 
through that stuffy back bed room. The charmed 
wicket to that passionately-desired paradise was 
locked against her, but the key was in the white hand 
of Millicent. That the girl should involuntarily 
breathe the “Open Sesame, ” or wittingly, and to her 
own detriment, throw wide the portal to the woman 
whom she had from their first meeting suspected, and 
whose influence over her father she had earnestly, 
if vainly, striven to weaken, was not to be expected. 
The stepmother came prepared for antagonism and 
ready to overbear it. Her enemy was entrapped. 
A disappointed adventuress faced her heiress step- 
daughter. A contest of this kind admits of being 
opened either with finesse or force, but if the latter is 
resorted to and fails it is late to fall back upon the 
arts of cajolery. Mrs. Wentworth held her enemy too 
cheaply and led force. 

“Why are you making this disturbance? Don’t 
answer me, if you please! I will not be answered! 
‘Mr. Wentworth?’ No, you cannot see Mr. Went- 
worth. He is quite well, oh, perfectly, yes, in his 
usual health, or rather better, unfortunately, for he 
is inclined to take liberties with himself of late; a 
much-changed man is your father during the past few 


Kidnapped 153 

weeks. What do I mean? I mean this, for one thing, 
that he is excessively annoyed with you — yes, you ! — 
for your unnatural neglect of him during his illness. 
We — he — wrote for you to return again and again, 
and could not elicit the grace of a reply of any sort 
or kind. I doubt if you will ever find him the same 
again. He refuses to see you to-day. Yes, abso- 
lutely. He desires you to keep your room. As a 
punishment? Yes, if you choose to accept it in that 
way. I am sorry to tell you I have quite lost any 
influence I ever possessed with him. He is an altered 
man, is Mr. Wentworth, spends all his time at Monte 
Carlo ” 

“That I cannot believe!” Millicent had recovered 
from the shock of astonishment at a vehement and 
unprovoked attack. 

“You can do as you please about that, but, for the 
present, I feel bound to carry out my husband’s 
orders. Your coffee shall be brought to you. Good 
morning!” The captive was pale, indeed, but un- 
quailing, resolutely dry-eyed. Force had failed. 

The absurdity of it! It simply couldn’t be, you 
know. Such things are not done nowadays. To 
lock a fine upstanding young Englishwoman within a 
month of her majority into a stuffy little upstairs 
room and keep her there a close prisoner seems 
impossible. It seemed so to Millicent. That her 
father was a party to this outrage she refused to 
believe for a moment. By the end of the second day 
she felt confident that he was not an inmate of the 
house, his well-known voice was not one of the three 
which reached her from below. At morning and at 
evening, but seldom between, she caught the tones of 
Mrs. Wentworth; during the day the discordant 


154 


Who Laughs Last 

singing of an Italian or ProvenQal woman sounded, 
mingled with the clash and jingle of pans and the 
sounds of scrubbing. With this woman she had yet 
to make acquaintance. Since the first night such 
service as she had required had been performed by 
her stepmother in person. During these interven- 
tions the door would be momentarily opened, and 
there had been wild impulses of revolt hardly repressed 
by the strong will of the prisoner. She had yearned 
to rush the stairs, to reach the street, to appeal for 
help, but had felt that such an attempt would be 
certainly risky, and probably ineffectual, and that 
the consequence of failure would prejudice her at 
present just tolerable position She had a plan. The 
third voice was a man’s, an Englishman’s; she fancied 
that of an elderly person. He came and went at all 
hours, except during those middays during which Mrs. 
Wentworth was absent. The prisoner learned to 
associate this voice with her stepmother. She heard 
it in long, confidential conversations, but never 
addressing Nicoletta. Nicoletta was the woman of 
the house, the woman who scrubbed and squalled 
and sang. Millicent was forced to the conclusion 
that she also drank; there were violent altercations 
between her and her mistress at times. 

Escape, in the sense of getting out of the house by 
her own unaided exertions, was impossible. The 
locks of both doors were sufficiently strong to resist 
any force of which she was capable. The window 
gave upon a garden, nor was the descent formidable 
in itself, but the wall was covered with a dense growth 
of a thorny plant, resembling cotoneaster. Could 
not she have jumped? This was an adventure to 
which she repeatedly addressed herself, but to have 


Kidnapped 155 

cleared the thorns she must have leapt out boldly, 
and this would have landed her upon a row of espaliers 
trained upon iron-work. The risk seemed too for- 
midable save in the last resort. Worst of all, she had 
no shoes. 

“And what did you do with yourself all day? 
Did n’t you worry awfully?” 

“Yes, rather, but it didn’t pay, so I kept the 
stopper on and arranged hours for things, by the bells, 
you know ; they are not like our church bells, and ring 
at odd times, or so it seems until you get accustomed 
to them. I had times for my Sandow exercises, and 
times for singing scales, and times for telling myself 
stories.” The girl laughed very becomingly, but 
did not describe the incidents or plots which had 
beguiled the weary hours of her captivity. “Then 
there was always the garden; on sunny days there 
were butterflies, several sorts, some Swallowtails, and 
a large yellow thing with an orange patch on each 
front wing. 1 And birds, you know, not many, but 
they were pretty tame there, they had n’t been dis- 
turbed much, and no doubt have a good time too in 
the campo santo.” 

Naturally the girl did not say that the remembrance 
of a boy in an extraordinary condition of mud and 
wet had been a not unwelcome resource. She had 
often recalled the soft, dull greens and browns of that 
English spring landscape, and the showers of falling 
drops as her companion pushed ahead through the 
covert to give her a lead, and, above all, the grave, 
ruddy face, instinct with deference and good breeding, 
and the way that the rider and his mare went together 
so that they had seemed one piece. No, this was a 

1 Gonopteryx Cleopatra ? 


156 Who Laughs Last 

prison distraction about which she kept her own 
counsel. Nor did she, at this time, at all events, 
confess to her low spirits, passionate revolts of the 
nerves, and anxieties on account of her father : nor to 
her prayers. Shall one disclose the recipient of this 
partial confidence, which would appear more appro- 
priately near the end of my story? Let there be no 
premature disclosures. 

She had her excitements, too. By the evening of 
the third day she had learnt one reason for her incar- 
ceration. At dusk her stepmother swung into the 
room, locked the door behind her, produced a stylo- 
graph, and requested her to write her name “here” and 
“here.” The documents were long and wordy. 
Millicent had frequently witnessed her father’s 
signature, and remembered his advice that, when 
her own turn should come, she should never sign 
anything unread or half understood. She was for- 
bidden to read the papers upon their first being shown 
her. She refused. On the following day she was 
again approached, and this time was permitted to 
glance through the documents, but could make nothing 
of the contents. They appeared to deal with large 
sums of money. Her stepmother’s name appeared 
and reappeared; both deeds were dated a month 
ahead. The girl’s suspicions were aroused. She 
declined to sign anything without her father’s per- 
mission. At the end of the first week this permission, 
or rather direction, was brought to her in writing, 
but the hand was not one with which she was familiar, 
nor was the signature that which Mr. Wentworth used. 
The explanation, gout in his wrist, failed to satisfy 
a daughter who had never known her father so affected. 
A telegram from Monaco ordering her to sign failed 


Kidnapped 157 

to convince, though bearing his name. Though 
vehemently, nay, almost violently assailed, Millicent 
stood her ground. During the heat of this contest 
the quick ears of the victim assured her that some one 
was upon the other side of the door. Later there were 
sounds of high words below between mistress and 
maid. Unknown to herself the prisoner had secured a 
sympathiser. During the hot hours of the next day, 
in the absence of Mrs. Wentworth and her man 
friend, Nicoletta made her appearance with better 
food and a bottle of wine. The latter Millicent re- 
signed to the woman, who finished it and became 
amusing, seated herself, conversed volubly in bad 
French, mon Dieued , snapped her fingers, laughed, 
gesticulated, and allowed her charge, as a treat, the 
run of the house for an hour. The relaxation was 
welcome if slight, for her stepmother’s room was 
locked, nor was access obtainable to her own trunks. 
The garden was also out of bounds, though she suc- 
ceeded in winning to it on a later day. The woman’s 
visit and the exeat became a daily occurrence. Nico- 
letta was desperately dull: she was a native of Bor- 
dighera, knew nobody at St. Lopez, no, nor the names 
of the streets, nor that of the villa. Being illiterate, 
she was unaware that it was named, nor, as Millicent 
was restricted to the premises, did she discover that 
the address which she so desired to learn was painted 
upon the street side of the arch over the door in the 
wall. A second and still more violent scene between 
Mrs. Wentworth and her stepdaughter was followed 
by closer advances on the part of the attendant, and 
the glimmering of hope for the prisoner. Whilst 
Nicoletta scoured and sang Millicent was permitted to 
read in the living-room. An envelope used as a book- 


158 


Who Laughs Last 

mark and the fly-leaf of a novel were appropriated, 
and a letter written to Marion Bohun. The stamping 
was a difficulty until some loose sous were discovered 
at the bottom of a vase of Vallauris ware mixed with 
hairpins, pen-nibs, and flue. The standish on the side 
table afforded ink and a penholder. The appeal was 
written, but how to get it posted? For days Nicoletta 
was ice to tentative proposals, but thawed at sight of 
a gold bangle, the only medium of exchange remaining 
to the stripped young Englishwoman. She had worn 
it upon her ankle in memory of a romantic schoolgirl 
friendship. It had to be broken to get it off. Would 
the woman keep her word? She assured the prisoner 
that the letter had been stamped and posted, calling 
God to witness. Millicent hoped. The address had 
been a difficulty. About a mile, or a mile and a half 
from the station, was pitifully vague. But Marion 
was a good sort. She trusted Marion. Also she 
prayed. 

Yet it was not to Marion Bohun that the prisoner 
was to owe her deliverance. 

The weeks drew on and the conditions of her 
captivity worsened. It was not for nothing that 
Nicoletta had left her own side of the frontier. Her 
addiction to liquor increased. Twice she paid visits to 
Millicent whilst intoxicated, but whether maudlin or 
violent, musical or deplorably lachrymose, the creature 
had sufficient wits about her to make escape or access 
to those locked rooms impossible. Though stumpy 
she was as strong as a man. 


CHAPTER XIV 


BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON 

“ At Veuve Badoit, 

Ruelle du Singe Vert, 
Callouris France. April , 19 

M Y DEAR MR. MASSON, — It is awfully nice 
of you about the binoculars. I only found 
them after seeing you off. Your letter was with them 
upon my bed. It is too good of you, for whilst I shall 
be using them every day you will be missing them. 
The rest of the letter was very kind. I will try to 
act upon it. Everything right so far. I paid my 
first call on the lawyer Billot : he calls himself a notaire. 
I am getting the hang of prices. I think they charge 
me more than they do themselves. As my usual 
clothes make me conspicuous I have gone in for an 
outfit suitable for a man of my age. I have also 
started letting my beard grow, and look a frightful 
ruffian, but most men do here. In this I am acting 
on the advice of an English resident : an old fellow who 
has been here for no end of a time. He draws in 
water-colours, the most awful things, but probably 
some one who knows would see something in it. I 
don’t usually pick up people, but he spotted my 
nationality and spoke first. He seems all right and 
i59 


160 Who Laughs Last 

volunteered to show me the ropes. He knows nothing 
of birds, which is unlucky, so I have to make out 
everything by Backhouse. The Blue Rock Thrush 
is pretty obvious, but the Warblers are a caution. The 
blackheaded one with short wings and a dark back 
must be the Sardinian , I think. There is a ruddy 
brown bird with something the action of a Wren, but 
with longer tail, and very shy; if this is not Cettia I 
am out of it. I have made out Crested Lark and 
Wood Lark, and a larger thing with a coarse bill, 
slate-coloured under the wing, a lark of sorts. Besides 
these are several of our home birds, but everything 
extra wild from being shot for gibier. 

“I know you will be far too busy to write often, 
but you most kindly promised me to sometimes, 
and when you do I should like to know how Kath- 
leen behaves. I don’t think you will have much 
difficulty in making friends, a carrot goes a long way 
with K. 

“Since writing the above hoopoes have come. 
They are handsome birds but filthy feeders. Also 
some kind of foreign Wheatear, the Black-eared Chat , 
if I have got it right: very pretty. — I remain, yours 
very faithfully, 

“W. de S.-C. Winterbourne.” 

It occurred to the writer whilst he was posting the 
above that he had never written such a chatty letter 
to a man above his own age: certainly not to his 
father. Yet he had no misgivings as to how old Mas- 
son would take it. Whilst we are about it, let us peep 
once more over the shoulder of our young friend at his 
walnut-wood writing-table, a rickety, twisty-legged 
thing with a drawer that goes with a battered brass 


By the Waters of Babylon 161 

drop-handle, dating from Louis Treize, spoil of some 
plundered chateau in the troublous times. 

" I am learning my way about, and by keeping a shut 
head, pass for a native. This is n’t the way to learn 
French, I admit, and you were quite right about that , 
but really the stuff they talk here is the most weird 
patois, do-samme for doucement , and so on. I read 
twice a week with the doctor, an educated man from 
Angers. The roads are splendid and I can do my 
forty kilos easy, but cross-country sentiers are rough 
on one’s boots ; the outcrops of white spar cut the soles 
through in no time, and repairs are bad and expensive. 
I wonder if you could send me a dozen each sole and 
heel pieces of decent English leather? I suppose they 
would come by post a few at a time, and I would put 
them on myself, especially if a few brads, or sparrow- 
bills, could come with them. The prices here are 
robbery. 

"Most of the summer birds have come. I have 
seen one Swift. My English acquaintance, Mr. 
Pennegwent, is a very good sort. I wish you knew 
him. He has given me some advice as to the people, 
who are quite nice upon the surface but funny under- 
neath. I rather think of changing my quarters, so 
please address ‘poste restante.’” 

“ 999 Southampton Row, W. C. 

April , 19 . 

"Dear Mr. Winterbourne, — I am very pleased 
to hear from you and to know that you are finding 
new interests in life. The shy, ruddy-brown warbler 
which jerks its tail and frequents reed-beds will almost 
certainly be Cetti’s. It is a resident on the Riviera, 


XX 


1 62 


Who Laughs Last 

but I am a little surprised at your finding it so far 
inland so early. The large, coarse-billed bird is 
probably a Calandra Lark; if it flaps round rather 
clumsily and utters loud, lark-like sounds you may 
be sure of it. Keep a diary and make careful notes 
of everything you see, whether identifiable or not. 
It will always interest yourself later. Make sketches, 
however rude, they assist memory. You are within 
a week of the beginning of the nesting season. Keep a 
sharp lookout for the nesting of the Wall Creeper, a 
shy, silent bird which runs over rock faces and shows 
a patch of exquisite crimson on the wing. Its colour 
when at rest is electric blue, inclining to black. It nests 
in crevices and for some reason its egg is one of the least 
obtainable: a complete clutch, well-blown, with the 
nest and date and (approximate) locality would fetch 
ten to fifteen guineas at Stevens’s. Verb. sap. (Please 
pack carefully, or wait until you see me.) Kathleen 
is in excellent condition. My man is fond of the ani- 
mal and has made a great pet of her. I have ridden her 
myself with pleasure to both steed and equestrian. 

“ The Mr. Pennegwent of whom you speak must be 
the artist of that name. You are quite right in sup- 
posing that those who understand art think highly 
of his work. I have seen some of it and heard it well 
spoken of. I am glad you have made this acquaint- 
ance ; it is worth cultivating. 

“The leather and nails come under a separate cover. 
If there is anything else of which you stand in need 
which you cannot obtain in the neighbourhood I shall 
be pleased to provide it for you. 

“I regret to tell you that I have no tidings yet of 
Mrs. Winterbourne. — Yours very faithfully, 

“Urquhart Masson.” 


By the Waters of Babylon 163 

Now began the quietest time of the boy’s life. 
Twice a week he called upon the notary for his re- 
mittance; twice he read French with the doctor; his 
evenings he spent over the chess-board with Penneg- 
went, who discovered in the taciturn youth an in- 
genious strategist, and the only man within reach 
who could extend him. The contests began with the 
concession of a rook, later of a bishop, and at the end 
of a fortnight, when Billy had come into his own, 
for the game was practically a new study for him, 
and was taken seriously, the odds stood at pawn- 
and-move, at which the elder scored five games to 
six. It was a formative time. Billy kept a rigorous 
hand upon himself; to brood was the devil; yet 
long, lonely days are difficult to wear through 
without brooding, so he set himself to walk himself 
out, to explore, to observe, to note, to depict as 
he might, for he was a poor draughtsman, but 
conscientious. 

Three days a week, or four if his feet could stand it 
and the weather served, he pushed the frontiers of his 
small kingdom farther and ever farther afield. The 
country around Callouris is hilly, an endless jumble 
of rocky glens choked with stunted cork, ilex, pine, 
and arbutus, rolling uplands of nine-feet-high heaths 
( bruylre ) with delicate smoke-grey bells and coker- 
nut-like balls of root, which he learnt from Pennegwent 
were the source of the “Briar-root” pipes of the 
tobacconist. Through these little- visited wastes small 
rivers meandered with coarse pasture along their 
courses. Being as ignorant of geology as most Eng- 
lish subalterns, Billy was long in discovering that 
whereas every square yard of certain districts was 
minutely tilled because it was limestone, others, being 


164 


Who Laughs Last 

porphyry, were not worth cultivation. These last 
were his playgrounds. Into these, rising in the cool 
dusk, he plunged armed with staff and binoculars, 
and carrying the loaf and cheese which should sus- 
tain him until evening. From the summit of some 
splintered hill above the tops of the rough communal 
forest he watched the sunrises, and heard the nocturnal 
life of the woodland returning to covert, the badger 
from his digging in rotting pine stumps for grubs, the 
wild sow and her litter of brindled piglings from their 
feast of cyclamen bulbs and crocus. Once he crouched 
in dewy undergrowth watching fox-cubs at play, 
tumbling over and over one another like kittens, 
whilst a haggard vixen reclined at length, unsuspicious 
of another observer almost as sympathetic. Other 
years may bring other scenes, but never will Billy 
forget the first unshared glories of that southern 
spring, its dim twilight dawns when invisible wood- 
larks sang in rings overhead, and little feet unseen 
rustled over the beds of fallen needles through which 
all manner of strange orchises and tway-blades and 
elecampanes were thrusting green and purple spikes: 
its hot, dry noontides when the air hummed with 
insect life, when great gaudy moths, unafraid of man 
or beast, fluttered about the pine-tops, and small 
blue or crimson-winged grasshoppers whirred up from 
the stony paths. There were moments when the 
sheer beauty of things took him by the throat. A 
rocky dell purpled by an uprush of dwarf iris, a dry 
roadside blue with grape hyacinths; the hot scent of 
sun-warmed rosemaries and lavenders around which 
hawk-moths whirred with the faint hum of distant 
mills; sharp contours, near distances, pellucid air, 
Billy saw, heard, touched, and smelt it all, took it 


By the Waters of Babylon 165 

deep into his system, and having no comrade to talk 
it off upon holds it for life. 

But a man, especially a young man, cannot live by 
bread alone; being a composite organism, not merely 
his stomach, but his brain, muscles, and other organs 
clamour for exercise. Mr. Wilbraham Winterbourne, 
a clean-hearted young Englishman, whose times had 
been hitherto very much marked out for him, and 
encompassed by observant critics of his own class, 
whose paths and whose lyings-down had been watched 
and guarded by older men from his childhood up, was 
by way of finding himself more entirely his own 
master than he liked. “It’s too irresponsible for 
anything. I should just like to know what brother 
Sam was thinking about when he chucked me down 
here without a damn thing to do, or a blessed soul to 
say, ‘Take a pull there!’ I don’t intend to go to the 
deuce, but if I did get there, I do think some of the 
charge should be borne by Sam — what? No, my 
dear brother, if that ’s your plan for my future, I don’t 
feel I can fall in with it. Fact is, I ’m not takin’ any. 
Thanks!’’ Thus discussing matters with himself the 
poor lad would fight down nature for the time. But, 
pure pride in oneself, and a touch of bitter resentment 
against one’s enemy, are, after all, poor armour against 
the devil. Billy found the open air the best place for 
him, and within doors the very worst. 

Nor was he the only person in Callouris who divined 
this. An artist is by the law of his being observant ; 
Pennegwent, accustomed to mark and record the 
faintest nuances of light, shade, and the fleeting inter- 
play of colour, had become, in spite of himself, in- 
terested in this stranded soldier-boy, and was conscious 
of a new trouble superimposed upon the old. He had 


1 66 Who Laughs Last 

not recommended Veuve Badoit, that was the doing 
of M. le Notaire, but he felt in a sense responsible to 
his friend Masson for the suitability of his ward’s 
quarters. Therefore one morning early behold his 
easel set up in the place at the foot of the Ruelle du 
Singe Vert in such wise as to give him a view of those 
who came from the Maison Badoit, more especially of 
any woman coming thence to the public fountain for 
water. He had asked no questions ; a foreigner who 
begins to investigate is pretty sure to be misled by 
natives, who will stand by one another in anything 
short of the worst. He was for seeing with his own 
eyes, and incidentally began a series of drawings of 
that quaint old auberge , the Green Ape, a piece of 
street architecture which, if not unnoticed, had never 
appealed to him before. His presence excited no 
suspicion: his great beard, his unapproachable taci- 
turnity, sun-bleached sombrero, and easel had been 
familiar to the young womanhood of Callou as long 
as any one of them could remember. None of the 
girls who brought her weighty, green-glazed, bow- 
handled ewer to the source had ever heard him open 
his lips. He was known to be English, believed by 
some to be deaf, by others to be ignorant of their 
patois. As a matter of fact, Pennegwent upon 
occasion was readier with Provencal than with his 
native tongue, and not an inflexion of their careless 
chatter was lost upon him. Most of the girls were 
known to him by sight, and had grown up beneath his 
eye. One was a stranger; she had issued from the 
door of the house which he had under observation, 
and was apparently a newcomer to her fellows, and 
was greeted with free-tongued badinage which she 
seemed to court. The Callourisienne, whether young 


By the Waters of Babylon 167 

or old, is used to the eccentricities of her ancient artist; 
should he extend a vertically-held pencil at arm’s 
length, close an eye, and mutter, the smallest girl 
knows better than to flinch, or to make the sign which 
averts the evil eye; monsieur is measuring his drawing, 
no more. The method has merits; the painter could 
scrutinise at his leisure the points of the girl from the 
Maison Badoit. He watched her deliberately graceful 
approach, moving sedately over the herring-bone 
pavement which Provence learned to lay in Roman 
times and lays still with the same dress and camber. 
He found her small for a woman of the Midi, but rarely 
well made, and well held; she walked admirably and 
dressed neatly, if with a thought too little upon her 
limbs. The forehead was smooth and low, diminished 
further by sweeping masses of cloudy black hair which 
hid the temples and were led back over half-hidden 
little ears, accented by morsels of pink coral. The 
brows were level and dark, the nose small and straight 
above a short, crisp upper lip; the chin well to the 
fore and as round as an egg. He judged the mouth 
too thin and none of the kindest. (“Not the sort to 
trust with a child. ”) But it was the eyes which gave 
the face away, they were long and sly and demurely 
self-conscious; they saw too much, they followed you 
when she half turned. It was then that he caught the 
profile. (“Bah, ’t is Madame la Rdpublique upon a 
sou!”) Here came eighteen with the knowledge of 
four-and-twenty. An Englishwoman of any age, 
maid, wife, or dowager, would have spelt the girl in 
four letters at sight — Minx. Any man over thirty 
would have reached down his armour at her coming. 
There was an immemorial ancestry behind her, a folk 
of mixed blood, Moorish, Iberian, the Roman-Pro- 


i68 


Who Laughs Last 

vincial and his nameless slave; oppressed men and 
wronged women of lawless instincts and unsatisfied 
appetites, who had loved covetously and hated vin- 
dictively, now outrageously held down, now up, and 
pushing reprisals beyond bounds. “ I know your sort, 
my lady, better than you know yourselves, ” muttered 
the old artist, biting his moustache and drawing down 
tufted eyes upon sorry visions of the past. “Your 
great-great-grandmother watched salt smugglers 
broken on the wheel in this square. (They did n’t 
call it the Place de la Republique then.) Your great- 
grandmother helped to sack the chateaux in the Red 
Terror; your grandmother hid beneath the tiles to 
escape being tattooed with the fleur-de-lys by wild 
aristocrates in the White Terror ; your mother chattered 
to her friends about these little incidents over your 
cradle, and you — ” He had seen enough and fell to 
work amid the splash of water and babble of tongues. 
They were quizzing the newcomer upon her relations 
with the young Englishman, her aunt’s lodger. The 
jests were pointed, and not too delicately worded. 
Girls of this class in the South, and in the North, 
for that matter, when out of hearing of their elders, 
and under the inspiration of their boldest, will 
discuss a spade as such, and discriminate its han- 
dle, shaft, materials, and make with candour. The 
dumb old painter, hunched over his beard, restrained 
them as little as the tinselled virgin behind her 
mud-spattered grille. The target of the raillery 
turned not a hair, eyeing her critics disdainfully, and 
when her lip moved it arose in a meaning smile. 
The painter saw it. “As a sou, did I say? Yes! 
— as brazen! By the Lord! the fellow has n’t a 
show.” 


By the Waters of Babylon 169 

“Mate in three! — you are off your game to-night, 
Mr. Winterbourne.” The boy did not deny the 
imputation; he drove his hands into the pockets of 
baggy pantaloons of brown corduroy and sat back 
silently considering his speech. His host guessed 
what might be coming, but judged it wiser to defer 
help; young men are sensitive and absurdly proud. 

“I am thinking of changing my digs, sir. You 
don’t know of anything that would suit me, I suppose? 
You see I hardly like to consult M. Billot, it was upon 
his recommendation that I went where I am. ” 

“Too expensive?” 

“It isn’t that. ...” A silent, cogitative minute 
passed. “May I tell you? You ’ll think me absurd. 

. . . There is a — er — young person there whom I 
can’t quite stick.” 

Pennegwent emitted a non-committal grunt and 
signified complete attention by eye and attitude. 
This fellow had better make out his own case. 

“You know, sir, there are women and — er — women. 
Some that one would n’t touch with a barge-pole, 
and some, no better, very likely, but ... I suppose 
it is my own fault, and yet. . . . Hang it all, sir! 
I meant to keep straight. I want to keep straight, 
and I will keep straight! But, not in that house. ” 

“Black-haired woman? Holds herself like a ser- 
geant-major? Don’t know you are there until she 
has passed you, and then . . . eh?” 

“Yes, smiles at you in the glass, confound her! 
And is everlastingly in and out of my room when I am 
there. Oh, all right, of course, it is her department, I 
suppose. And meets me on the stairs with her water- 
jar and pants. (It is jolly heavy, you know. I was 
fool enough to carry it up two Stages for her one 


170 


Who Laughs Last 

morning. . . . Never again!) How is it? Can you 
explain? I never felt like it before to any woman, 
right or wrong. I swear I have n’t touched her except 
when our fingers met on the water- jar thing. I have 
never talked with her, don’t want to — at least, I won't , 
whether I want to or not ! Now what is it? Here is a 
foreign woman I could not carry on a conversation 
with upon any subject in the world, whom I know 
nothing about, yet if she gives me one of her long, slow 
looks it goes right through me. Oh, hang it! I am 
making myself out a silly fool ! ” 

“Not at all, Winterbourne, please go on — if you 
will trust me, that is.” 

“Thank you, sir, you are awfully good. It gets 
worse. I tried tiring myself out. I walked a thunder- 
ing way yesterday; no good. She laid my dinner for 
me and stood behind my chair just where she knew I 
could see her in the wall-glass. I had to turn her out 
of the room (quite civilly, you know). But the look 
she gave me! To-day is the limit. The veuve is a 
bit of a tartar, you know. I have heard her with one 
of the neighbours! This morning there was a scene. 
Her aunt set about Lucille and — I had no sort of 
business to have looked ; they were in the yard at the 
back, but the girl made such a fuss (I expect she de- 
served all she got !) — I had all my work to keep myself 
from going down. Then she came upstairs moaning 
and sobbing at every step, and hung about my Stage 
twice as long as on the one below. I timed her. I 
sat tight, sir, but I cannot keep it up. Now you see. ” 

“And you wish to clear out. Wise man! Most 
fellows at your age make a mess of things first and 
ask advice later. Now, I will give you mine for what 
it may be worth. Come to me. ” 


By the Waters of Babylon 17 1 

“My dear sir!” 

“I am serious. We hit it off fairly. I can clear a 
room of my stuff. Bemardina will let you alone. She 
is as plain as a Bengal Artilleryman, and married at 
that. I know your ways, we will meet at dinner only. 
Go and come as you like. Pay what you are paying 
now, or less if you please. Leave it to you. ” 

“My dear sirl” 


CHAPTER XV 


INNOCENT EAVESDROPPING 

N EAR the eighth kilometre stone south of Callouris 
the CMteau Montsouris crowns a rock com- 
manding the old southern road. The place was built 
by one of the Valois favourites, a minion of that 
miserable Henri, master and murderer of Le Balafrd. 
At the Revolution it shared the luck of other French 
castles and has never been rebuilt. Not that so much 
needs doing; the curtain wall is perfect, the fosse, 
scooped at its foot, from which the stone for the edifice 
may have been quarried, is safe against any outrage 
except earthquake. Gate-tower and barbican, outer 
and inner bailly, ask but little to put them in repair; 
the keep, a fine example of later middle-age fortifica- 
tion, with vaulted chapel practically intact, guard-room 
cloisters, dungeons, oubliettes, and all the rest of it, 
wants nothing but the bumt-out timbers replacing to 
make of it a noble residence. That it is six miles 
from a station, and fourteen from the shops, is almost 
in its favour since the coming of the motor. The land 
around it produces nothing except lentisk and myrtle, 
and never can have done more, being igneous rock, 
but your twentieth century castellan would rather be 
quit of arable and tenants. The place in its prime 
172 


Innocent Eavesdropping 173 

needed no valvassors, being a toll-bar levying octroi 
upon the traffic into Italy. One point more in its 
favour, the water-supply is perfect: that deep horse- 
well, excavated in the living rock at cost of the lives 
of countless Huguenots, is still effective and uncon- 
taminated. 

That it has escaped modernising is due to the cir- 
cumstance that it takes two to make a bargain, and 
in the case of Montsouris neither party has hitherto 
been forthcoming. Lying to the north of the coast- 
range it lacks the full perfection of the climate of the 
Riviera proper, and, being wide of anywhere, and 
without a starred hotel within reach, is not mentioned 
by Baedeker or considered a show-place. Moreover, 
its proprietors until lately have declined to sell. 
From its last lord of the old line, camerlengo to the 
late Pope, it descended to a distant collateral, an 
Orleanist rallie, whom the Faubourg St. Germain 
decline to recognise, and who, in default of this hall- 
mark, and unholpen by the Church, failed to make a 
match of it with the Catholic heiress to the Devlin 
dollars (Hog Products, Corncob City, 111.). 

Thus it happed that when Billy discovered the 
place it was as lonely as Stonehenge, the haunt of 
wild birds which found in its battlements substitutes 
for the cliffs which the neighbourhood does not afford 
them. '‘I have seen the Wall Creeper,” he wrote to 
Masson. “It is the shyest and quietest thing; flies 
like a woodpecker in leaps, and is even rounder in the 
wing. You said nothing about the white in the tail 
and flight-feathers, otherwise your account of the 
colours it shows when playing is underdone, the crim- 
son is as fine as anything in a parrot. I am hoping, ” 
he went on, “to spot its nesting-hole, but at present 


174 


Who Laughs Last 

it seems undecided. The pair are in and out of a 
dozen crevices in an old castle some miles from here, 
but I lie up and watch them day by day from dawn 
until they are off to feed. Expect news by my next. ” 
The corkscrew staircase opened out upon what of 
yore had been the minstrels’ gallery of the great hall, 
roofless now, and floored with thin sward over its 
still unbroken pavement. The huge, hooded hearth, 
its overmantel upheld by naked caryatids of heroic 
size, yawned at the farther end. Billy got himself 
cautiously from the gallery rail to the corbel table of 
a fallen roof-truss, and thence to a bed of wallflower 
cresting the wall itself, where, hidden in green stuff, he 
could lie unseen, watching the row of crevices fre- 
quented by the birds. He was later than usual, but 
the day was still young; he would be in the shadow of 
the gable for hours yet. He set himself to see and to 
enjoy. An only child and the son of his father’s age, 
the fellow had been his own best comrade from his 
nursery; used to long and lonely walks, solitary com- 
munion with nature and his own thoughts. There 
had been many a day, since he won his liberty to 
wander, when he had returned to tea with nothing 
in his little stomach but the sandwiches he had begged 
from Mrs. Lambkin eight hours before. From the 
dark, whispering pine woods he came back to civilisa- 
tion full to the lips of absorbed marvels, things un- 
speakable, which he could not have told to any one; 
they would not have understood. What did grown- 
ups know of things? They would look at one another 
and say, “ Law /” As for confiding his experiences to 
his father, the idea had never entered his head. It 
was after homing from such rambles that he heard 
with a sense of wonder the sound of his own voice, 


Innocent Eavesdropping 175 

stilled since the breakfast- table. It was at this work 
that he had taught steadiness to the swimming head 
and jumping muscles of a naturally timid boyhood. 
He remembered one miserable fortnight of self- 
reproach ; he had recoiled from an especially dangerous 
climb, and despised himself so thoroughly, that to 
escape his own contempt he had girded fear-slackened 
loins and deliberately, yet with dry mouth and staring 
eyes, yes, and with cramped wet hands, clung and 
clambered to a hawk’s nest in the summit of a dead 
and leaning larch, only to find one young robber out 
and dried, another wet from the shell which lay beside 
him, and a third chipping and squeaking within his 
ruddy prison. He could smile now (he had not smiled 
then) to think of his quaking descent, and how three 
holds simultaneously snapped, leaving him dangling 
by one hand over a gulf of air with a bed of hard 
gravel far below! He had never told this adventure 
to any one at the time, nor since. Why should he? 
Self-repression had resulted in self-possession and the 
woodlander’s eye. The men who rode with the Brake 
had begun to realise that it was not by chance that 
this silent, wooden-faced little “Shotter” viewed so 
many foxes away, knew where the take-off was sound, 
and which top-rail would give, chose and rode his own 
line with the silent promptitude of a major. At 
Montsouris he was a boy again, a boy as before he 
went to Eton. Where another would have eaten his 
heart out, tried absinthe, flung himself against the 
bars of his cage, or gone to the devil, this youngster, 
by the saving grace of his passion for nature, found a 
solace for a sorely-wounded spirit and saved his soul 
alive. The chateau was the unkedest place he had 
ever visited. Not a herd-boy came near it. Once 


176 


Who Laughs Last 

and again during his long hours of silent watching he 
was uneasily conscious of Presences. Nothing that 
he could see, nor hear, but some super-sense bade him 
beware. The place, like so many French castles, had 
seen atrocious doings, betrayals, ravishings, felons* 
strokes of poniard, poisoned cups, torturings, immur- 
ings, treasons : of such is the history of France. The 
warm dry stones knew, the heads of grass whispered, 
little wafts of wandering air came and went with 
something to say which they could not get out, nor 
could wholly repress. The bleak, white place reeked 
of murder even in the sunlight, as a cathedral murmurs 
with prayer after it is closed for the night, and of this, 
Billy, who had never read French history, was aware. 
Like a sensible fellow he refused to give place to eerie 
impressions. Finding them unwholesome he reso- 
lutely kept them outside himself, as he did with other 
intrusive thoughts. The mediasvalists held that a 
witch could not cross a threshold uninvited; would 
that some bishop would preach upon the text! Billy 
kept his heart as best he might, and found, as many 
another tempted son of Adam has found, safety in 
distraction; his eyes and ears kept his imagination 
busy and full. Since his last visit three pairs of 
kestrels had come to the keep and were flickering 
around its battlements, alighting, taking wing, enter- 
ing and leaving holes in the masonry, emitting their 
shrill, quavering cry. Billy, intent upon his wall 
creepers, which had not shown up since he had taken 
his position, paid no attention to the hawks which he 
thought the common Windhover of home, until one 
alit upon a lower perch and displayed a clear, blue- 
grey head, ruddy, unspotted back, and white claws. 
The boy held his breath, for the creature was near, and 


Innocent Eavesdropping 177 

unsuspicious of his presence, and was a species new 
to him — the lesser kestrel of the south. The sight 
filled him with tingling delight. (You smile? — happy 
and safe is he who can extract pure pleasure from 
common things!) And while he watched, a man 
issued from the foot of the stair by which Billy had 
reached his lair, a stair which led to the minstrels’ 
gallery and to nowhere else. The man , who was about 
thirty feet below and almost directly beneath him, 
wore a flat cloth beret which overhung his face. A 
short cloak, like the cape that used to be worn with 
an ulster, covered his shoulders, and below it Billy 
got a glimpse of baggy knickers and black stockings, 
and of nothing below them , for the person was without 
feet! Yet he did not walk like a cripple, but with 
silent, easy gait, and, as he crossed a space where the 
hall pavement was bare of turf, his feet shewed, but 
were lost again where a mound of fallen masonry 
took him to the knees. Billy beheld him wade through 
this obstruction as a man wades in standing grass, 
and display visible ankles and shod feet upon a second 
space of pavement beyond! At the great fireplace 
which filled the end of the hall the creature turned and 
straddled with his back to the empty hearth, shifting 
from foot to foot as a person does who warms himself. 
He was a pale-visaged person with small red moustaches 
and pointed beard. Then he began to return, keeping 
the middle of the great, vacant apartment, and had 
reached its centre when the hawk, which Billy had 
forgotten, dipped down into the hall below, snatched 
a shining dor-beetle from the turf, and arose to its 
perch again. The watcher caught his breath, for the 
bird had made nothin g of the intruder, although it had 
passed through him twice ! Now it was crouched upon 


12 


i 7 8 


Who Laughs Last 

its block of yellow stone, cracking the shell of its 
prey; he heard its beak at work, but no least sound 
came from below. The cloaked man had stopped in 
his sentry-go. He drooped dejectedly as a man might 
upon bidding a final farewell to some house he had 
long owned and now was in danger of losing. He had 
left-half-faced and stood regarding an arch in the 
wall, once possibly the service-door, or buttery-hatch, 
now rudely built up with loose stones by some goat- 
herd who had used the enclosure as a fold. The 
figure was in motion again; it slowly approached the 
doorway and passed into — or through — the stone 
obstruction, as if unaware of its existence! Nor did 
it return. That was all; positively all; nothing 
happened. An experience of this sort is apt to be 
disquieting. It differently affects different organisms. 
Billy winked his hardest, bit his lower lip (having a 
new bird within twenty feet of his eyes he did not 
change his posture) and told himself that this was 
tommy-rot, and that he certainly was a bit bilious, 
and wondered if they kept cockles at the pharmacy. 
Which reminded him that he had not called for his 
letters for two days, and was still without news of his 
mother. Which shows that a good conscience, and 
complete absence of imagination, is proof against a 
curious psychological experience. Billy was. “That 
sort of thing really does n’t happen, y’ know.” And 
to-day he would surlily repudiate having seen what is 
here described. 

And whilst he was arguing himself back into the 
twentieth century, there was the distant pulsing of 
more than one motor upon the road below, the little 
hawk had demolished its beetle and arose lightly, and 
there, clinging to the masonry opposite, was the thing 


Innocent Eavesdropping 179 

he was after, a wall creeper. It worked upward with 
quick, short jumps, shuffling its half-opened wings, 
and uttering a ringing call-note. Its mate joined it 
and both took wing, toying and flapping around one 
another like great crimson and black butterflies ; then 
the pair darted into a crevice and the show was over, 
leaving a hopeful man considering the possibilities 
of exploring that hole, how many feet of rope the job 
might require, and to what it could be belayed. 

“This would have been the seignorial hall of justice 
and banqueting saloon, I guess. It is the part most 
in need of repair. Am I to understand that the 
chateau is new to you, M. Colon? Your first visit? 
Sir, you surprise me! What I am going to say may 
surprise you. I am the owner of what you see. It is 
mine, and I am proposing to put the en-tire property 
into re-pair. You exhibit wonder? Let me assure 
you that it is a business proposition, and to make this 
evident, will you kindly accept this note of the Bank 
of France? ‘Liberal?’ Not at all! It is only by 
way of recompense for your day’s work. I am con- 
sidered a liberal paymaster, sir, but I expect, and 
indeed insist, upon quick work. I have been called 
a hustler. The term is new to you, possibly. What I 
want is a set of sketch plans and rough estimate for 
the renovation of Chateau Montsouris, graded ap- 
proach for motors, oil-engine for pumping, modern 
sanitary arrangements, and accommodation for a 
household of one hundred souls including service. 
Kindly arrange for as many separate cu-bicles as 
possible. Yes, sir, certainly, the drawbridge and 
portcullis must be restored and will be used, entailing 
a second oil-engine. The gate-house will be made 
habitable, and gates of the appropriate pattern pro- 


i8o Who Laughs Last 

vided. The chapel must be re-« 0 -vated, sir, and re- 
seated; also I must have an organ with hy-draulic 
air-pump, and a cistern aloft for supplying pressure. 
A carillon , too, for I am partial to bells. You see my 
style? I am prepared to spend half a million louis, 
more if needful. You do not know me, even by name, 
nor at this stage of our acquaintance is it necessary 
that you should. It is sufficient that I am fully 
informed as to your capabilities, M. Colon. You can 
communicate with me through these gentlemen, my 
bankers in Cannes, under the initials 0. Q. S. Mean- 
while, as what I am expecting of you will take up 
your full time for some weeks, here again is an hon- 
orarium, or re-taining fee, an advance payment which 
I trust you will think satisfactory evidence of good 
faith. So, for the present, I wish you a good day!” 

Two persons had entered the hall and were in 
converse, if conversation may consist in one talking 
(“like a bally showman!” — Billy) and the other 
punctuating his companion’s monologue with bows 
and the spreading of hands (“like a shopwalker!” — B. 
again). Both were in motoring costume, but Winter- 
bourne, who had detected an American in the oratori- 
cal style of the speaker, saw a Frenchman in the 
gesticulations of the listener. Whilst conversing 
they were moving, and presently passed into another 
part of the building by a doorway on the left of the 
hearth. The inadvertent eavesdropper could hear 
their voices now faint, now raised from other parts of 
the ruins, and a few minutes later caught the sounds 
of motors leaving in opposite directions. 

“And who is O. Q. S., I wonder! Pity to pull about 
a fine old place like this. Why can’t these oofy 
Yanks build something on their own? Between them 


Innocent Eavesdropping 181 

they will spoil the chateau once and for all, worse 
luck! Must try to make sure of that nest before 
they get to work. Otherwise it is no affair of mine. ” 
So soliloquised Billy, whilst feeling for a foothold 
preparatory to letting himself down to the minstrels’ 
gallery and getting back to Callouris. But before 
the day was out he was to discover that his connection 
with, and interest in, the business of restoring Mont- 
souris was closer than he had supposed. 

Whether mounted or upon foot he distrusted roads, 
and here in a strange country, frequently found his 
bee-line lead him to seldom-visited nooks of wild 
France. That day, upon his homeward way to Laruns, 
the first hot forenoon of the year patted him upon 
the back, taking the very breath out of him. 

“Phew! I am as soft as butter, and was fancying 
myself fit!” He sat him down among the brush and 
let his eyes rove among the still unfamiliar beauties 
of a silent dell unvisited by any waft of air. 

“A fellow might kick at this, I suppose. There 
are men who must have their — ” (A big, butter- 
coloured insect sailed idly past.) “Funny that the 
male ‘Brimstone’ should have that orange flush upon 
the fore-wing down here, whilst the female is just 
like ours at home! Of course, if you let yourself go, 
and start out to be a victim you ’ll be. I could have 
managed that easily enough if — ” (A pair of ivory- 
and-jet Wheatears settled upon a rock near, uncon- 
scious of his presence ; he stiffened to dead-stump-like 
immobility and watched the lovely southern creatures, 
just arrived from Africa, preen themselves and rest 
until they passed on.) “Now, that is good enough 
for me. I rather fancy, if things go badly, I could 
put in a couple of years here without getting to the 


1 82 Who Laughs Last 

bottom of it. . . . I must get a net: the bugs are too 
beautiful to let alone; a fellow might take something 
new. Flowers again, look there!” The floor of the 
glade was dry as a high-road, but between the loose 
metalling, and among the stems of shrubs which 
seemed immune to drought, a thousand dwarf irises 
had thrust their bluish flags and were that day break- 
ing into a sheet of regal purple. The scent of the 
place was just bearable; bushes of rosemary tipped 
with dusty blue flower, violet spikes of the southern 
lavender and leprous wormwood were exhaling the 
odours of Araby : orchises scented and unscented were 
opening within reach of his hand, one, a giant of its 
kind, a mighty hyacinthine truss a foot-and-a-half 
high, another dwarfish, and so insect-like in its mimi- 
cry as to warn off one’s hand from touching its malign- 
looking innocence. He had gathered his first real 
blood-red anemone a minute before; he had seen 
hundreds in the herbaceous border at Hornbeams, but 
to find the thing growing wild was a revelation. “I 
am an ignorant fellow . . . know nothing. There ’s 
no end to be learned. ... It will take me all my 
time. ... I will start that diary. . . . There 
will be bad times, no doubt, but there will always be 
this. ... Off we go again! Phew! but it gets no 
cooler. . . . First thing call for letters. If I knew 
mother’s address I could stick the rest.” 


CHAPTER XVI 

BILLY AS A MAN OF ACTION 

A /"HAT happens here when two men have had 

V V a — er — scrap ? ’ ’ 

Mr. Pennegwent glanced up over the spoon which 
he held in suspense. 

“Insulted party sends his friend ” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. He might, but I 
should n’t imagine. ... He is n’t a Frenchman. 

... I was rather thinking of a dispute between 
two of ourselves. Is n’t there anything in the shape 
of a County Bench?” 

“ Sous-Pr6fet, fine ( arrti , they call it). Don’t 
know much about their procedure myself. Walk 
wide of rows, always did. Man of peace, sir. ” The 
spoon travelled to his lips. 

Billy crumbled his petit-pain. “Sorry. ... I 
was going to ask. . . . Fact is, sir, I had a little 
altercation with a man to-day. It was like this.” 
The boy found the greatest difficulty in explaining 
his action without giving away more than he intended. 
“A very dear friend of mine has been missing for 
some weeks. My lawyer has been making inquiries 
without success. His last to me says so, ” the young 
fellow frowned moodily. Pennegwent nodded, the 
183 


1 84 Who Laughs Last 

narrator went on. ‘‘Went for letters to-day. Chef 
at Poste Restante had a little bundle of them done up 
with a string (not enough of them here to pigeon-hole, 
I suppose). The one he turned over before reaching 
mine was addressed in my mother’s hand. There! 
Done it now! Well, anyhow, what I ’ve just said 
may explain things a little. ” 

“I ’ll forget that, Winterbourne. What did you 
do?” 

‘‘Felt like going for the clerk in the Bureau, sir, but 
there happened to be a gendarme sitting at a table, 
so I kept it in and waited, reading my own letter and 
wondering what to do. Just then in steps an Ameri- 
can : a man I ’d seen earlier in the day ; the fellow must 
be worth a pot of money; restoring a castle near here; 
goes about in a motor; banks at Cannes and has 
O. Q. S. for his initials; and now you know as much 
about the sweep as I do. He passed in a card and 
got that letter, the gendarme gets up, salutes, and 
hands him another which he opened and walked out. 
I waited a moment and followed. You know the 
little garden in the Place Gambetta, dusty evergreens 
around a bust- thing on a pedestal? There are seats 
there where the bonnes sit and watch the children. 
He dropped into one; there were no women there at 
the moment, all at dejeuner , I suppose. He had 
finished the first letter, it must have been shortish, 
and bad news. He tore it across and across and 
pitched the bits over his shoulder. I saw his mouth 
going, swearing it looked like, but, seeing me, he 
settled his face and took out the other letter — mine 
— but had not time to open it. I went straight to him ; 
he saw something was coming and jumped up. ‘ Give 
me that letter,’ said I. Just that. He is a clean- 


185 


Billy as a Man of Action 

shaved man, twice my age, and over, tall and big, 
and can talk. He began some piffle. ‘Young man! 
—be warned ! ’ said he, and began waggling his glasses 
across my face, fixing me with his eyes at the same 
time. I know that trick, its hypnotism — seen it 
done. If you don’t stop it you are done. I went 
straight in, putting his hand aside and grabbed the 
front of his coat where I had seen him put the letter. 
His right went to his hip-pocket, but my left got him 
on the chin and down he went. ” 

“Gad! — you don’t say so!’’ gasped the artist. 

“I had the letter before he knew where he was, 
and helped him up. He had fallen with his right 
under him and sprained the wrist. I took his Mauser : 
nasty, unsafe things: always going off and hurting 
people. He is n’t marked, or much the worse. 
Beastly having to handle a man as old as that, but 
what could I do ? I l # ef t him sitting on the seat . Now , 
what will happen?” 

Pennegwent’s soup was cooling unheeded. This 
was life, the old life, the real thing! the man’s blood 
stirred. 

“My goodness!” he said under his breath, realising 
the scene, the shaded quiet beneath the bay trees, the 
tall mesmerist talking for an opening, plying that 
distracting, flickering little pince-nez, the duel of 
eyes, and the abrupt movement by which the boy had 
preserved his liberty, the tussle, the blow, and a 
discomfited charlatan upon his back among the orange 
peel and burnt-out allumettesf He passed the coarse, 
towel-like serviette across his mouth (What a boy!) 
and grappled with the question. 

“Well, he could have got your name from the 
Bureau. You certainly played a forcing innings! 


1 86 Who Laughs Last 

What will come next depends upon the man. It is 
his move. Rich Americans are n’t fond of being 
knocked down and having their pockets picked in 
broad daylight. At the same time, a fellow of his 
standing, wishing to settle here, has his character to 
think of. In a hotel, or renting a villa, he could 
please himself. A Poste Restante correspondence 
may, or may not, be quite the thing. Carrying arms 
is not the thing. This happened at mid-day, and you 
have heard nothing from the Sergent-de-Ville ! Then 
probably, you will hear nothing. If you do, leave it 
to me. Know ’em all here, more or less; might put 
in a word. Pleased to help you further, if I could, 
y’ know, and, of course, if you wished it, Winter- 
bourne. ” (Goodness ! what a boy !) 

“It may come to that sir, and, anyway, I ’m much 
obliged to you.” 

Pennegwent was thinking that his protdgd was not 
such a fool as he looked; his memory was running 
upon a correspondence in the weekly edition of the 
Times — his one link with the world. Some extra- 
ordinary impositions had been exposed, but whether 
English law could touch the perpetrator seemed 
doubtful. He would look the matter up. 

A hurried perusal of the impounded letter showed 
Billy the value of his prize and the unsatisfactory 
surroundings of his mother. His first action was to 
telegraph to Masson as follows : 

“Mother’s address Le Tertre, St. Lopez, Alpes 
Maritimes letter follows.” 

He did not sign the message nor give his own 
address, judging that his letter telling of his change 
of quarters would have reached the lawyer. Then, 


i8 7 


Billy as a Man of Action 

sitting down, he made a fair copy of the captured 
document, and posted the original to Masson, under 
cover of one giving succinctly its history so far as he 
had it. He knew of his friend’s official interest in the 
case, was sure of his sympathy, and wanted his advice. 
But as no reply could be expected within four days 
he must act for himself. 

There are no night trains upon the branch which 
serves Callouris, nor do fast expresses stop at the 
junction, nor was there, so far as he could learn, any 
one in the dead-alive, out-of-the-world town from 
whom he could hire a bicyclette. “ Oh, for Kathleen ! ” 
groaned Kathleen’s late owner, as he let himself out 
of Chateau Laruns at two in the morning, prepared 
for a twenty-mile walk to St. Lopez, where he pro- 
posed to break his fast and begin his investigations. 

There was much in his mother’s letter to which he 
had no clue, but enough to excite curiosity and disgust. 
The opening, “To my Reverend Guide,” jarred un- 
pleasantly. Was the fellow a Jesuit? Billy knew as 
little of the Society of Jesus as he did of the Brahma 
Somaj, but held a poor opinion of its goings-on. 
What was his mother’s business with this Yankee 
bounder? What meant her deprecatory apologies 
for want of success with a Millicent W.? What was 
Mrs. or Miss Millicent W. to her, or she to Millicent 
W.? or either of the ladies to this cMteau-restoring 
crank? He felt unsettled, and raw, and humbled. 
He had known for years past of his mother’s erratic 
existence. How could one help knowing? The 
vacant table-head at the Hornbeams told its own 
story. Of the unbridged domestic chasm he had never 
spoken, even to Mrs. Lambkin, instinctively, if un- 
justly, laying the fault of it at Sam’s door. Of Mrs. 


1 88 Who Laughs Last 

Winterbourne’s suffragettings the papers chortled 
aloud. The mess had been awfully kind to him but 
of course the fellows knew. His mother, whenever 
they met, had been sweetness itself; a glorious whirl- 
wind of a creature, profusely generous, capriciously 
delightful, her hands tied, as she pleaded, by her 
husband’s commands and her agreement. But this 
last month’s work was all new and distressing. She 
had cut herself adrift from her son without warning 
or explanation ; and, if this were her excuse, it hardly 
bore thinking about, but called, nay, shouted, for 
his interposition. He clenched his fists, his face 
worked as he went. 

To love and to recognise the frailty of the one whom 
one loves, and to love on, unselfishly, pityingly, pro- 
tectively, this is love indeed. Billy was loyal to the 
father who had judged him so hardly, and for that 
loyalty’s sake, and for his love of her who bore him, 
was tom with anxieties upon both their accounts. 
Fearing he knew not what, suspending judgment, 
hoping desperately that he might be of avail, he strode 
on beneath the burning stars. Fomalhaut hung in 
the south. 

One of the beneficent properties of regular and 
prolonged muscular exertion is its sedative effect. 
George Eliot has told us that a woman’s trouble can 
usually be sewn into a long white seam. Most of 
ours may be walked to their minimum. If three 
miles an hour will not get it under, three-and-a-half 
may, four must. Yet there are some anxieties of such 
poignant and intimate cruelty that a man may no 
more outwalk them than he can outlaugh gout. The 
moon had set early, darkness was around him and 
darkness and apprehension within, whilst an oppres- 


Billy as a Man of Action 189 

sion of trouble lay heavily upon him. It was the 
hour at which the bodily powers are at their lowest. 
The boy was sensible of insufficiency for the task 
awaiting him, of his youth, want of experience of 
affairs, ignorance of the laws and of the speech of the 
country in which his action must be taken. His 
poverty, his remoteness from counsellors, and the 
hurrying need of effective deeds overbore him, im- 
peding his breathing, and pressing like a tight band 
upon his heart, not to be heaved away by repeated 
effort. This was another matter than his duel with 
Sam; which was his own affair, wherein if he fought 
and failed none fell but himself. In this issue a 
woman, a mother, figured, and a step aside, a point 
missed or delayed, meant — what? The fellow was 
at his farthest. How would he bear himself in face 
of the final test of manhood? “Man’s extremity” — 
you know the adage. This was the opportunity of 
the Oversoul. But poor Billy was handicapped by 
his upbringing. The output of a home obsessed by 
the evangelical tradition, from infancy his father had 
exemplified the Deity, the embodiment of reticent, 
aloof, inscrutable caprice. “Just and good” — no 
doubt, but in this last month the childish faith had 
been rudely shocked : mercy and goodness had some- 
how failed; the justice which must not be questioned 
had erred lamentably ; power, the one attribute which 
had hitherto held its own, had been overborne by — 
Sam! Thus it was with the boy; Samuel’s practice 
had blighted his brother’s faith. The real, inward, 
vital faith, be it said, for the religion of public school 
and regiment was part and parcel of curriculum and 
parade, to be assumed in chapel with appropriate 
expressions and gestures, and left there until wanted. 


190 


Who Laughs Last 

He had “said his prayers” until he went to Eton, 
where, and since, he had listened, or more truly heard 
the reader, and had joined more or less perfunctorily 
in the prescribed responses; but during his whole life 
it is doubtful if he had ever felt an irresistible com- 
pulsion to approach the Unseen with a definite request. 
In his emergencies, whether in the study of the Head 
of the House, or putting a blown horse at a locked 
gate, the impertinence of bringing the Almighty into 
it had simply never occurred to him. When a fellow 
had had his fun the consequences were all in the day’s 
work. That the take-off was greasy, or that the pre- 
fect was selecting a particularly beastly-looking cane, 
was nothing to bother the Deity about. A man must 
keep his head shut and play the game. 

Now, upon the dark road, in the grip of an extremity 
which was not merely personal but altruistic, his very 
soul arose and felt blindly about it. One side of him 
was in revolt, was dead sick of the whole blasted thing. 
Of course there was the short cut out of it, the Roman 
way, but how would that help her? It was examined 
and rejected; not good enough, ungentlemanlike. 
Nor was this an occasion for the hardening of mouth 
and eye, and for saying “I ’ll be damned if I give in!” 
That way got you no farther, for the damnation 
seemed hanging over another. 

At last from the depths of a labouring heart a mute 
cry for help arose and was repeated and groaned'on in 
time to his footfalls upon the shrouded road. And 
lo, from Somewhere an answer came, a wordless 
assurance of support. The band left his heart, his 
breath came more freely, warmth and strength and 
comfort poured through every limb. Later Mr. 
Wilbraham Winterbourne mused upon this experience. 


Billy as a Man of Action 19 1 

There had been no conscious application of dogma; 
he had not knowingly used the prescribed Means of 
Grace, yet, until his dying hour he will admit — (to 
himself, such a transaction is not for speech) — that 
Somehow he called and Someone answered. He 
strode forward confident of success. 

Now he had leisure to attend to the growl of an 
ill-used body warning him that unless he attended to 
its needs the demons would beset him again. In a 
high shallow valley in the midst of the coast-range he 
called his first halt, bestrode a fallen trunk and fed, 
whilst unseen by him, and below the hill southward, 
the horizon paled for the dawn. Getting to his feet 
filled and strengthened he addressed himself to the 
final miles, and swung along upward until, with his 
face level with the last crest, his eyes beheld across 
black, rolling pine forests, through a far cleft in distant 
hills, a glitter of boiling gold notching the purple line 
of the sea. 

“The Mediterranean!” he whispered, and laid his 
hand upon his mouth as the glowing disc heaved itself 
over the rim of the world for his sole sake, as it seemed, 
so lonely was the forest road. Now it was a quarter, 
now half engaged, now emergent, but strangely mis- 
shapen ; now free, and floating, and driving the brief 
southern twilight before it, whilst long shadows of the 
topmost pines lay ebony black upon a rosy carpet of 
needles. The watcher bent his head and worshipped, 
the mistle thrush sang overhead, and every dewy bush 
of lavender and rosemary sparkled like an altar of 
incense new-lit and gave a goodly smell. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A PROPHET WITHOUT HONOUR 
HE Rev. Onesimus Q. Simpkinson, M.A. (Athens 



1 City University, Miss., for $10 currency pre- 
paid), known to readers of Truth as “The Guide,’ * 
but aforetime, and in the land of his birth, as Pony 
Simp, One-Hoss Simmie, Prayerful Onesimus, and 
by other and less euphonious soubriquets, originally 
of Maple Springs, 111., and so widely known as the 
founder of the Heavenly Family, had experienced 
vicissitudes. As drummer for a soft-goods firm, 
bank manager, real-estate agent, scare-head writer to 
a western journal, and outside clerk to a Wall Street 
stockbroker, he had seen life. Between whiles he had 
peddled pills, taught school, and lectured upon animal 
magnetism. At this last industry he discovered 
his true vocation, and being at the time class-reader 
in a chapel of one of the many subdivisions of Ameri- 
can Methodism, broke away from the fold and led a 
little exodus into the antinomian wilderness. He was 
thirty then, but that was twenty-five stirring years 
ago. He was in a small way at the time : he was no 
longer in a small way when he bought Chateau Mont- 
souris. Possessing a handsome person, a powerful 
and flexible voice, histrionic genius, a business head, 


A Prophet Without Honour 193 

boundless effrontery, and remarkable hypnotic powers 
(and no scruples), he had attracted and held in sub- 
jection a number of impressionable persons of both 
sexes. His claims were boundless, his methods 
simple: assert, never argue; insist upon implicit 
obedience ; obtain a power of attorney. 

That a half-educated man, vouched for by no or- 
ganisation, without means or credentials, of no family, 
and with a pronounced American accent, should have 
imposed upon such exclusives as English Evangelical 
Churchmen, and should have led away members of the 
aristocracy, would be incredible had it not happened 
repeatedly. As everybody knows the Low Church 
is subject to fits of depression. In the day of its 
power it defamed Maurice, Kingsley, and Frederick 
Robertson, cast out Colenso, and washed its hands of 
Voysey, persecuted Purchas, Father Ignatius, New- 
ton-Smith and their followers until the Broad and the 
High, thriving upon persecution, multiplied and 
possessed the breadth and height of the land, and the 
once dominant Low dwindled to the dimensions of a 
sect. During its supremacy it held the Free Churches 
at arm's length: the views of the Wesleyan and the 
Baptist might be orthodox, but their manners were 
unacceptable, it was impossible to invite them to 
any table, save the Table of the Lord. This way lies 
decadence. If a race or a communion isolates itself 
it deteriorates. In the case of the Low Church the 
process has gone on until it is whispered that the 
Simeon Trustees have difficulty in finding suitable 
clergy to fill the pulpits of their tied churches. They, 
or their fathers, distrusted intellect and looked 
askance at courage until intellect and courage went 
elsewhere. Even the manners for which they stipu- 


13 


194 


Who Laughs Last 

lated are not always forthcoming. A bull- voiced 
curate with a T.C.D. degree, or a wan young person 
from Harrod’s Stores, smuggled into the Church by 
favour of the Young Men’s Christian Association, 
Polytechnic Classes, and a Lambeth B.A., must serve 
their turn, although the rolling “rrs” of the one are 
almost as trying as the deficient “hhs” of the other, 
and at a Mayor’s dinner or a Town Hall meeting 
neither can hold a candle to the Mansfield College 
man, minister of a well-appointed Nonconformist 
chapel, and acknowledged leader of local Liberalism. 
At intervals a dismal sense of being side-tracked 
disturbs Evangelicals, and at the instigation of some 
strong personality, lay or clerical, proposals are put 
forward for inclusion. A convention is assembled, 
exchanges of pulpits are advocated (which, unless the 
law be altered, must needs be one-sided), efforts are 
made to draft some impossible formulary which shall 
delude the many whilst saving the faces of the few, 
and bind the free without liberating the bound. 
Then, after a week’s talk, the ancient difficulty of 
getting a quart into a pint pot is once more apparent 
and the thing breaks down. It was at the Great 
Folkestone Convention of 19 — that Simpkinson saw 
his opening. He was in low water at the moment. 
Maple Springs declined to honour its native prophet ; 
Santa Marta, on the Coast Range, had cast him out ; 
his Home of Repose at Seattle had been burnt by 
enraged husbands and fathers. After an altercation 
with the Sheriff of one of the Sound Ports, his property 
was attached and the Guide went under. 

He reached the surface again in the East End. 
Toynbee extended to him a kindly and non-committal 
hospitality. It had never heard of him, and at Toyn- 


A Prophet Without Honour 195 

bee Mr. Simpkinson first heard of Folkestone. There 
he made a hit. Knowing his audience, himself 
unknown, he pronounced without stammering the 
shibboleths of Evangelicalism. His devout fervours 
and apparent simplicity gained him a hearing. His 
magnificent voice, majestic and reverend aspect, 
seemed to warrant his “safety.” He possessed a 
genius for ingratiation. A drawing-room was placed 
at his disposal, he was encouraged to explain his new 
views upon “Holiness,” and before the thing seemed 
well begun ’t was done ! When the truth about him 
came from America it came too late to shake the 
blind faith of the convinced. A party had been 
formed, an insidious schism was at work; what had 
been whispered tentatively as a doctrine was now 
proclaimed as a new revelation. Orthodoxy showed 
him to the door; he pitied and forgave the orthodox. 
He held a winning hand. It is easy to pardon when 
the purse is full, for many converts followed him and 
of honourable women not a few, and these had placed 
their houses and cheque-books at his disposal. Every 
Mahomet must have his Khadija; a wealthy widow of 
sixty, Mrs. Pitt- Mont jolier, was Simpkinson’s (since 
discarded, alas! for fresher faces and fuller purses. 
But what would you have? The Cause must have 
funds.) She clave unto him ; the man had a flair for 
women of independent property; he seemed able to 
distinguish them in a crowd, but did not neglect the 
facilities of Somerset House. He had courage, in- 
tuition, and was a bom organiser. He trusted his 
converts, put them upon their honour to believe and 
proclaim him. “Lock them up and they quarrel. 
No, sir! No conventual re-strictions for the ladies 
of the Heavenly Family! I en - trust my ladies with 


196 


Who Laughs Last 

responsibility, I send them around upon missions 
‘ Heavenly pursuivantes, * yes, they con-vert souls for 
the Cause.” 

Such, with local and personal differences, for the 
better or for the worse, has been in every age the early 
history of heresy, schism, and sect. A magnetic 
personality manifests itself, shines forth, succeeds, or 
fails. From such influences, whether good or evil, 
the Savage and the Turk safeguard their women, 
but at what cost to the race ! Christendom, protest- 
ant Christendom, at least, accepts the risk. It is 
real. There are basal facts in nature which education 
cannot eradicate, but can expose to new perils by way 
of the levelled barrier and the unlocked wicket. The 
wisest and the oldest may not know, but the youngest 
and weakest may go peep. We are a free community, 
and recognise the right of private judgment, and claim 
to have emancipated the sex. So we drive the gipsy 
from the service-door, and welcome the medium at the 
front; forbid bridge and find a Hamburg lottery- 
ticket in the letter-box; read the Lancet , distrust 
doctors and grovel to Christian Science; repudiate 
the Christ and obey a mahatma; expel nature with a 
fork and find her back again through the window, 
yes, and in command ! 

Meantime the Guide was not free from embarrass- 
ments. We don’t tar-and-feather evangelists of his 
sort on this side, we pillory them in the Press. Dis- 
inherited relatives brought actions alleging undue 
influence. He looked about for a back door. The 
States were closed to him upon grounds which he 
declined to discuss. Pamberhurst Court, Dorset, 
renamed the Abode of Perfect Peace, sheltered the 
sect for a couple of seasons, but an unsympathetic 


A Prophet Without Honour 197 

Vice-Chancellor made it plain to Mr. Simpkinson 
that if peace were to be found it must be sought farther 
afield. What about the Riviera? It is cosmopolitan, 
it stands cercles, it kicks not at the most unconven- 
tional arrangements so long as these pay their way. 
A society which sticks Monte Carlo might shelter 
him and his. So, being a person of the promptest 
decisions, the Guide pounced upon Montsouris and 
set to work to put it into a state of defence. By 
registering it as a SociSte anonyme he could protect it 
from seizure under English legal decisions. Pending 
actions might run their courses and reach the Lords; 
he had a couple of years to play with, after that his 
persecutors were welcome to make him a bankrupt 
in Great Britain so long as he retained the wealth and 
infatuated affections of the anaemic men and muddle- 
headed widows and spinsters who bored and kept him 
going. Solemnly anointing Elect Ladies as Deputy 
Guides he dispersed the Family, temporarily housing 
it in groups in villas along the Riviera, from St. 
Raphael to Cap Martin. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE TROUBLES OF A CONSCIENTIOUS TRUSTEE 

M R. MASSON sat at his breakfast-table at St. 

Albans. He looked across the valley at the 
red tower of the abbey church and down at the pile 
of letters beside his plate. There were mornings when 
he felt the weight of his years, this was one. Even 
the most detached of family lawyers have their feelings, 
and when these are engaged are unable to throw off 
the incidence of other people’s griefs and blunders 
when the working day is finished. Then these worries 
go home with them and spoil a night’s rest. This had 
happened to Mr. Masson. There were three persons 
with whom he was anxious to get into touch, but after 
patient inquiry he had to confess that he knew not the 
address of any one of the three, nor the particular 
country in Europe, or elsewhere, in which they might 
be looked for. 

With Mr. Cornwallis Wentworth, the father of 
Miss Millicent, for whom he, Masson, was trustee, 
friendly conference was desirable, for the young lady 
was upon the verge of attaining her majority, and 
would then become mistress of her dead mother’s 
fortune. For her sake and for his it was advisable 
that they should make acquaintance. These con- 
siderations Mr. Masson had repeatedly urged upon 
198 


Troubles of a Conscientious Trustee 199 

his client, but such dilatory and apologetic replies as 
he had received had come at long intervals, and from 
distant and varying addresses. For a month past 
they had been written in the hand of an amanuensis, 
apparently a lady, and signed with initials, or per 
procuration. Mr. Masson had made the less ado 
about taking Billy to Callouris since, as we know, his 
co-trustee was to be found there, and apart from the 
slender hope he entertained of interesting Major 
Pennegwent in the search, it had seemed possible 
that upon the Riviera at that time of the year a vale- 
tudinarian Englishman might be heard of. There 
was something of a clue. Mr. Wentworth, whilst 
travelling, provided himself with funds by drafts 
upon his own bank when in the neighbourhood of any 
financial establishment which would undertake the 
collection of the money. The last cheque which had 
been presented at Winterbourne’s had come through 
Cook’s Office at San Remo. It was irregularly drawn 
or, to speak by the card, irregularly signed. A spraw- 
ling and shaky C. W. was reinforced by a clearly 
written 11 Cornwallis Wentworth , p.p. O.W .” There 
had been searchings of heart as to what treatment 
this cheque should receive, but Mr. Samuel had 
decided to meet it, the amount being about £250, and 
by the following post his action had been justified, 
for a letter had come from the absent partner at 
Bordighera, requesting that for a few weeks this form 
of signature (made needful by a gouty wrist) should 
be honoured by his bankers. But neither Cook’s 
people at San Remo, nor the propriStaire of the Hotel 
Cavour at Bordighera, the address of the letter, could 
give any information as to the movements of the 
elusive Mr. Wentworth. He had come and he had 


200 Who Laughs Last 

gone, sick and restless. And time was running 
on. 

The disappearance of the erratic Mrs. Winterbourne 
was equally embarrassing, and for the same reason. 
Mr. Masson was this lady’s trustee, and stood in the 
same relation towards her son Wilbraham, now ap- 
proaching his majority, when, if his mother should 
have died, he would be master of a couple of thousand 
a year in his own right. In such circumstances it 
behoves a trustee to keep in touch with the bene- 
ficiaries. This, in the case of Mrs. Winterbourne, was 
less easy than it would have been had the lady kept 
an account at her husband’s bank. Mr. Abraham 
Winterbourne was accustomed since the separation 
to pay his stipulated half-yearly alimonies to Masson, 
who passed them to the lady’s credit at her City 
bankers. There contact ceased; nor was the lawyer 
sure that her agents would tell him where the last 
cheque which she had drawn upon them had been 
encashed ; this, in their eyes, might seem no part of 
their duty towards their client. 

These considerations, which had given the old 
gentleman a short night, in some degree affected his 
appetite for breakfast. His rule was to finish his 
rasher before opening an envelope; and he permitted 
himself no exceptions, albeit among the letters was one 
addressed by Billy, and his mind was running upon 
what new birds his young friend might have seen. 
But retaining the childlike habit of reserving the tit- 
bit for the last, he opened a letter from Welbury, 
wondering upon what occasion Winterbournes should 
be addressing him at his private house instead of at 
Southampton Row. 

It was from the senior partner. The writer hoped 


Troubles of a Conscientious Trustee 201 


to catch him before he should have left home for the 
City, where his own health forbade his calling upon 
him as in other days. Could he make it convenient 
to dine and spend the night at Hornbeams? A wire 
in reply would be appreciated. If in the affirmative, 
let him mention which train the brougham should 
meet. Would he be pleased to bring with him the 
deed of partnership of the existing firm. 

The lawyer sucked in his lips and sniffed, stroking 
the arched back of a smoke Persian. What might 
this mean? Time would show. He slit the edge of a 
letter from Pennegwent. 


“ Chateau Laruns, 
Callouris Alpes Maritimes, 

5 th May , 19 — 

‘‘Dear Masson, — I am breaking confidence in 
writing what follows, and must confide in your well- 
tried discretion. Mrs. Winterbourne, in whom I 
believe you to be interested, is in this neighbourhood. 
At any rate, an envelope addressed in what I think 
is her handwriting lies before me, dated the day before 
yesterday, and bearing the St. Lopez post-mark. I 
found this in my waste-paper basket an hour ago, 
thrown here, as I have no reason to doubt, by our 
mutual friend, and my house-mate, young Winter- 
bourne. As the fellow left the house soon after two 
this morning I should suppose he is in pursuit. How 
he obtained the letter, which is not addressed to 
himself, is a story which I had better let him tell you 
in person and in his own time. Between ourselves 
this is a plucky young dog. Don’t give me away! 
If this letter is superogatory pardon a meddlesome 
old fool! 


202 


Who Laughs Last 

“The more I think of that absurd one-man show of 
your proposing the less it appeals to me. Frankly, 
you and your friend will drop money upon it. (I have 
none to lose, as you know, so you must not come back 
upon me.) Nothing shall make me believe that the 
British public does care, or ever will care, for Art. 
My work tells no stories, points no morals, and in 
subject and technique is wholly unlike anything with 
which the Cockney is familiar. Be warned, let me 
alone; I am not a fool, merely a damned unlucky 
beggar, fortunate only in your friendship. — Yours 
as ever, 

“Conway Pennegwent. 

“An uncommon fine young fellow. A man of 
action, and, what is better, not afraid of taking 
responsibility. ” 

“What has my ward been up to?” murmured the 
lawyer, and slit the third envelope, Billy’s (whose 
telegram with his mother’s address had come two 
days earlier; this would be the promised explanation). 
He skimmed the covering letter, a dry, restrained, 
poorly-expressed account of the writer’s transaction 
with an American. (Name and domicile unknown.) 
One line redeemed it from dullness. “I have spotted 
the Wall Creeper’s nesting-hole,” which was satis- 
factory, but this was a case of duty first and ornitho- 
logy afterward. The enclosure gave him furiously to 
think. He sat sipping his coffee, planning his day. 
He must to Callouris as fast as trains could take him, 
and would advise Pennegwent of his coming by wire. 
Therefore touching the bell he bade pack his kit-bag 
for a fortnight’s absence. Having already lost the 


Troubles of a Conscientious Trustee 203 


early boat- train he could afford to run down to Wel- 
bury, but not to dine or to sleep ; he must cross that 
night. Therefore a second wire to Hornbeams. On 
the road thither he must call at his office for the bank 
deed of partnership, and have speech with a man of 
his profession who was in closer touch with the world 
and its ways than himself . Who was “The Guide”? 
What did 0. Q. S. stand for? Both symbols connoted 
information which had recently passed through his 
system, and been too curtly expelled as unlikely to 
be of use to him. Mem. — Never do that again. A 
family lawyer should know everything and keep 
himself informed of the day’s event. As for Millicent 
W., the solution jumped to the eyes. Billy, who had 
never met Miss Wentworth, or knew of her trustee’s 
anxieties upon her account, had casually hit upon a 
clue to the lady’s neighbourhood. It was this or an 
almost unthinkable coincidence. Then did the old 
man permit himself the relief of a weary sigh, half of 
chagrin at labours to come, more of thankfulness at 
enigmas solved. It was heaved and done with, and 
anybody who knows Urquhart Masson will have no 
difficulty in believing that he carried through arduous 
and varied engagements with the gentle, imperturb- 
able urbanity which is his outward characteristic, 
allotting to each sufficient time for its satisfactory 
fulfilment, and betraying neither to his legal acquaint- 
ance the intimacy of his concern in the notorious 
Onesimus Q. Simpkinson, of whose financial, social, 
and religious adventures he learnt enough to make him 
apprehensive (“What a fool the woman is!”), nor to 
Abraham Winterbourne the danger in which, as he 
had reason to fear, his estranged wife had involved 
herself. In the train from Welbury to Dover he had 


204 


Who Laughs Last 

time to review what he had to admit had been a mem- 
orable day. “He is a better man physically than he 
was at my last visit : speaks up more clearly, more reso- 
lution about him. And, now I think of it, did he men- 
tion Mr. Samuel? Once? I think not. Is there 
trouble there? Of Master Billy he spoke twice with 
feeling; there is a tenderer spot in the old man’s heart 
than I had thought. One never knows in what way 
the parental instinct will manifest itself. Forty odd 
years have I been in practice and I confess myself a 
babe in the matter of fathers and sons. Here is one 
of the clearest heads, and strongest wills, and soberest 
judgments of my acquaintance about to do a most 
extraordinary thing. A wrong thing. Absolutely 
against my advice! I begged him to take Mr. Samuel 
into his confidence, but no, he kept silence. Samuel 
must have driven him too hard, and this, I suppose, is 
the counter-stroke. My own position is growing diffi- 
cult. I have been accustomed to act for the Concern 
as well as for my old friend, and have hitherto found 
no clashing interests. But if this is carried to a cli- 
max (as I trust it will not be) I shall have to make 
choice which client I am to act for. Mr. Samuel 
Winterbourne might consider my day’s work as hos- 
tile to his interests ; yet, there is the provision in the 
deed, and there it was when he signed it. Am I bound 
professionally to acquaint him with the fact that his 
father contemplates exercising his legal powers? I 
think not. I am not bound to tell him what I know 
of his father’s will, for instance. (It is not precisely 
an analogous case, but there are similarities.) After 
all, the father and son may come together again, and 
my draft may never be used. Now for this mad letter 
again ! What a woman it is!” 


Troubles of a Conscientious Trustee 205 


“ 30 th April , 19 — 

“Reverend Guide, — I don’t know how the House- 
holds at St. Raphael and Cannes are getting on. Ours 
at St. Lopez is enough to make a saint cuss! The 
upsets and bickerings are perfectly disgusting. A 
woman in command will make a fool of herself if you 
only give her time: you take my word for it; I have 
seen the inside of three convents, and worked upon 
the committee of the Militants for a year ; so I know. 
For mercy’s sake give us a week of your harmonising 
presence or we shall fly to fifty bits ! Sister Placentia 
is a wrong ’un. Pray don’t think I am criticising 
your inspired selection of a Deputy Guide. She may 
have been suitable for the office of Elect Lady when 
you imposed your reverend hands ; but she is n’t now. 
That is plain. I caught her wearing a pearl-and- 
ruby ring which was among the jewels which I had the 
honour of laying at your apostolic feet. Naturally I 
expected that it and the rest would be disposed of for 
the support of the H. Family. You gave me to sup- 
pose so, and I entirely believed you, and do still. But 
the woman has got it (and probably other things which 
were mine). She at first refused an explanation, but 
has since told me that she had it from yourself as a 
gift. Which is absurd and not to be credited for a 
moment. Hence we are driven to suspect her honesty. 
What alternative exists? Am I to live in the same 
house with a person who is wearing stolen property ? 
and obey her orders? She went so far as to try to 
confine me to my room. That I would not stick, and 
have accepted the hospitality of a friend. — I remain, 
with profoundest reverence, your ever obedient 
Handmaiden, 

“Sister Sophronisba. (In the H. Fam.) 


206 


Who Laughs Last 

“ P.S . — Pray come to me without delay. I am not 
the only one of us who finds S. Placentia unendurable. 
She is a perfect cat. 

“P.P.S. — I forgot to say that as I am the guest of 
people to whom I have (naturally) not disclosed my 
new name, you must address me as I was known before 
my regeneracy, viz.: 

Mrs. Winterbourne, 
c/o Mrs. Bohun, 

Le Tertre, Avenue Marengo, St. Lopez. 

“P. P.P.S . — Owing (and entirely owing) to the 
monstrous behaviour of that Creature, I have been 
unable to make any further attempt to get into touch 
with Millicent W. The gate of Casa Bolivar is locked, 
and the jalousies are always shut (at least they were 
when I paid my two visits). The board has not been 
taken down. It is still to let. I could make no one 
hear and dared not write. Nor, for a week past, owing 
to that Wretch, have I had the heart to do a thing. 
Are you sure you have the right address?” 

“‘Millicent W.’ Hum! Ha! Short of certainty 
the thing looks a case. ‘Millicent W.’ Hum! 
Coupled with this, too.” He unfolded a French tele- 
gram, placed in his hands as the train moved out of 
Paddington that morning by a clerk who had taxied 
from his office to intercept him. The paper came 
from St. Lopez and had been handed in at 8 a.m. 
(“Creditably quick transmission.”) The sender, a 
person unknown to him, entreated Masson to keep an 
appointment at the Nord Station, Paris, on the mor- 


Troubles of a Conscientious Trustee 207 


row, on the arrival of the night-boat train. (“As it 
happens I can do that. ’ ’) The name of M . Wentworth 
was mentioned as an inducement, and his own trustee- 
ship. Revelations were promised. It was signed 
Victor Palgrave. “This bears a very sinister as- 
pect. The Simpkinson person, having transferred his 
‘ Heavenly Family ’ outside the jurisdiction, is at his 
tricks again. He has evidently got Mrs. Winter- 
bourne into his power more or less (knowing her as I 
do, I should say — less , oh, yes, distinctly less; she sits 
lightly by him and his already, apparently). But as 
long as he can flatter her, and use her, she may remain 
within his community, and apparently she is being 
employed in some capacity, and one of her objects is 
‘to get into touch* with this ‘Millicent W.,’ who 
seems to have found a friend in this Palgrave person. 
Where have I come across the name? Surely he was 
the payee of that ill-advised cheque, and my inquiries 
made him out a respectable young fellow. How 
comes he into this? Well ! Well ! I must hear what 
he has to say. A trustee’s life is not entirely a bed 
of roses. This all needs thinking out and consultation 
with Master Billy; also conference with my poor friend 
Wentworth and my ward. And with this Winter- 
bourne woman (Heaven help me!) Well! Well!” 


CHAPTER XIX 


SIR FAINT HEART 

I F you have stood at evening upon the summit of the 
Mendel, or some similar racial watershed, and 
heard the Angelus rise from valleys upon either hand, 
the voices of campanili builded by men of differing 
speech and histories, you will realise how deep is the 
cleavage between Roman and Teuton. Their very 
bells refuse to know one another, time and swing and 
the meaning of their cadences and changes are wholly 
alien; they rise and fall upon the still air of sunset 
antagonising still, witnesses to an irreconcilable past. 

Millicent had some such thoughts as these when the 
church built of yore by the Knights Templars awaked 
her o’ mornings. Through a breach in the rampart of 
embattled cypresses she could catch a glimpse, whilst 
in her bed, of a square-topped tower, and could see its 
bells tumbling, each upon its heavy wooden wheel, 
Cling-clang, clang-cling! If she stopped her ears and 
watched their movements she could imagine them 
porpoises rolling upon a dark green swell. 

When the bells began it was time to rise and do her 
daily drills. Twenty-four times the girl sat down upon 
her heels and arose without help of hand. Twenty- 
four times, bending from her height, she pressed her 
fingers' full lengths to the boards without flexion of the 
208 


Sir Faint Heart 


209 


knees. As many times she lay at length and regained 
her feet without using so much as a finger-tip. She 
swung her chair around her head with each hand in 
turn. These exercises were simple; there were others, 
such as standing with her little rosy heels some eight- 
een inches from the skirting, and with a slow back- 
ward flexure of the supple young body from the hips 
upward bringing her lips in contact with the wall 
behind her. Whilst in this posture the key grated in 
the lock; with a single bound she was between the 
coarse yellow sheets. Mrs. Wentworth, in a sortie-de- 
bain , stepped into the room bare-footed, carrying a 
blotting-case and stylo. 

“What are you doing? you make the whole house 
shake! Do you mind witnessing my signature? I 
am off by an early train. Never mind dressing. It 
won’t take you a second. Sorry to disturb you, but 
I found you were awake.” 

Whilst speaking the woman laid her papers upon 
the small rickety table, drew up the one chair, seated 
herself and wrote. 

“There! — that’s my name and hand- writing. I 
solemnly declare. . . . But what am I saying? Of 
course you are not a Commissioner for Oaths! Ha, 
ha!” she laughed, and arising beckoned to Millicent to 
sit. The girl, drawing the throat of her robe-de- 
chambre together with her right hand, approached 
unwillingly and saw where her stepmother’s name had 
been recently written, for the ink shone wet; but the 
signature was not at the foot of the document, it filled 
what must have been a blank space in a line, for other 
words extended to right and to left of it. She thought 
that there was also writing below it, but the pad was 
arranged to hide that. 


14 


210 


Who Laughs Last 

“There is the place for the witness — for you — below 
the blotting-paper. Why don’t you sit? Here, take 
the pen!” 

“Thank you, I prefer not to write anything. I 
don’t know what it means.” 

“It is not necessary that a witness should know 
what the thing ‘means,’ as you put it. Cannot you 
understand that you are merely witnessing my signa- 
ture? Really! your curiosity is not particularly well- 
bred, Millicent! I confess to a feeling of surprise! 
What inquisitiveness! Vulgarity! No, I shall not 
think of obliging you. It is no concern of yours. Will 
you do as I ask? Or will you not? ” 

“ I will write nothing. If you want this witnessing, 
why not go to the English Consul?” The jailer’s 
dark eyes were clouding: “or ask Nicoletta,” they 
sparkled, “or that person whom I hear about the 
house every day?” 

A small, firm right hand came round with a swing, 
taking the girl upon the ear. The heavy mass of 
chestnut tresses still loose from the pillow deadened 
the sting of the blow, but its weight sent the recipient 
reeling. Her lips came together without a sound. 
She caught the chair and set it between the aggressor 
and herself, her eyes blazed. It needed but little to 
have turned the persecuted creature into a maenad, in 
whom the bulkier but less active woman would have 
met her over-match. From such a descent Millicent 
was saved by the innate breeding that comes from 
many generations of self-respecting ancestresses. 
There were things impossible to her, and a blow, 
save in the last extremity, she found herself unable 
to give. Force had failed again, failed in its crud- 
est form; Octavia Wentworth swept herself from 


Sir Faint Heart 21 1 

the room panting and glowing darkly, a defeated 
fury. 

Millicent kept her face to her foe until the door 
closed, then suddenly her knees shook, her breath 
came short, and she must needs sit upon the bed’s edge 
to recover herself. Never before in her twenty years 
of life had she anticipated or taken a blow. A minute 
earlier the occurrence would have seemed a ludicrous 
impossibility. And this outrage had befallen her, 
this inexpiable insult had been put upon her! At the 
moment, whilst still in the presence of her tyrant, she 
had frozen to a tight-lipped, hard-eyed figure of ice, 
sheer resistance. To have cried, to have writhed, 
expostulated, would have been degradation. She had 
owed it to herself to meet the affront as a statue smiles 
down upon the insults of a mob. But now, alone 
again with the bare walls of the room, all eyes watch- 
ing for her weakness, she shook as though in the throes 
of an ague, feeling the hot blood pumping in her ears. 
Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, her whole being a 
mass of tingling nerves, she moaned low behind com- 
pressed lips and discovered an ancestral brute within 
her awake and palpitating for revenge, yearning to be 
slipped upon its tormentor. Her brain boiled, her 
teeth chattered. To her tingling finger-tips her veins 
ran mutiny. With one lithe movement she turned 
and dropped to her knees. Her little hands wound 
themselves in the locks of her temples and tugged until 
the pain stilled the inward yelp. Winking back scald- 
ing tears, she bit the sheet, and after a minute’s 
struggle rediscovered Millicent Wentworth, and knew 
herself once more, and found refuge in abysmal depths 
of prayer. 

This may have lasted five minutes, or fifty, she 


212 


Who Laughs Last 

knew not ; she was otherwhere, and in the presence of 
the Unseen. Power flowed in upon her, and calm. 
Then a sound from the world she had temporarily left 
recalled her. The key was cautiously moving in the 
lock. In an instant she was upon her feet, composed 
and cold. But it was Nicoletta. The woman slipped 
noiselessly in, finger upon lip, holding the door ajar, 
ready for swift retreat, signalling to the prisoner to 
use her ears. Voices came from somewhere, pitched in 
the confidential tone of friends conversing at close 
quarters. 

“You thrashed her?” inquired the man’s voice, the 
usual man. “Whew ! But was n’t that a pity? And 
she took it? I had somehow formed the opinion that 
she is a well-plucked one, not the sort ” 

“What do you know about her sort, I should like to 
know? There! Don’t take any notice of me. I 
acted the goat. It is my temper, my infernal temper, 
it spoils everything!” 

“I should judge that it has spoiled this; for after 
such a manifestation — shall we call it? — there won’t 
be much use in — I mean it will be rather difficult to 
get back to — Don’t you see? ” 

“Oh, as far as that goes I have lost nothing. This 
was my last ace, and when she trumped it I felt ratty. 
Now must we try something else — the other thing.” 

“I don’t know him. It is your plan, not mine. 
But, after this, it is just possible that she will be willing 
to jump into any. ...” The speaker chuckled, the 
woman echoed his mirth perfunctorily. “It ’ll need 
diplomacy, you know; he won’t come to a whistle. 
What do you say to . . . ?” The voice was suddenly 
muted, some one had closed a door. 

“Comprenez?” whispered Nicoletta, her mouth and 


Sir Faint Heart 


213 


eyes at their roundest, herself at strain to catch each 
inflection of a tongue which she did not understand. 
Millicent made no reply. In two strides the woman 
was before her, bending over her, her brown bare feet 
set wide apart, her hard hands upon the girl’s shoul- 
ders, exploring the pale, quivering face. 

A coarse finger gently lifted the heavy tresses and 
found what it sought. 

“Mon dieu! Un gifle! que diable? — Mais c’est 
affreuse!” Then a door below opened, the woman 
stepped noiselessly from the room, turning the key 
upon the captive with silent despatch. 

Mrs. Wentworth left the house later than usual. 
The day was the twenty-sixth of Millicent’s imprison- 
ment, as shown by the score kept with a nail upon the 
door. It was marked by an hour’s liberty in the 
garden, her first. Oh, the green freshness ! the delights 
of the shabby overgrown place! Not a bush but 
breathed balm, each wide, white disc of gum cistus 
was a separate marvel, the waxen chalices of the 
arbutus were things to coo over, to kiss ! to thank God 
for ! Every small glittering beetle went in a herald’s 
tabard. A swift, the first she had seen that year, 
circled aloft, a heaven-sent vaunt-courier pomising 
release. 

A sudden impulse to escape surged up within her; 
Nicoletta had demanded no parole when giving her 
the run of the shrubbery, the door into the lane was 
no insuperable obstacle ; it went with a latch upon the 
inside, as she had observed when permitted to sit for 
an hour in the front room. There must be English 
within reach somewhere ; what place along the Riviera 
is without them? There might be a Consul, or a 
Cook’s Bureau, a bank, a chaplain, or some one of posi- 


214 


Who Laughs Last 

tion at one of the hotels. Or at the station she might 
appeal to somebody ; it was not very far to the station 
as she judged by the trains’ starting whistles heard 
from her room. Her room ! one glance in its direction 
shattered the half-formed plan. Nicoletta, her hands 
upon her broad hips, an enigmatic smile upon her 
coarse peasant mouth, was watching her prisoner from 
the window. She lifted a brown finger, beckoning, it 
was the signal of recall. Millicent’s hour was up ; she 
returned to her cell. The wardress awaited her at its 
door, swept her in with a friendly laugh, and turned 
the key. The captive was alone again with her prison 
furniture, blistered paint, and stained paper-hangings. 
But what was this? Upon the wall beside her bed, 
attached by four pins, was the photograph of a young 
man in the military undress of an English infantry 
regiment. This was the woman’s doing, it explained 
her grin ; it was meant kindly, something for her pris- 
oner to look at, a fellow-countryman. But what an 
absurd place for it ! level with her eyes as she lay, close 
to the end of her pillow. To examine the thing she 
must bend, nay, sprawl across the bed, and, half 
ashamed to find herself in such a posture, or taking 
interest in the picture of an unknown man, she threw 
herself down and studied the novelty. At least she 
was alone, the thing might surely claim so much from 
her ; she had no responsibility for its presence. Whom 
did it represent? How had Nicoletta obtained it? 
Was it the chance-left property of some Englishwoman 
who had at one time stayed in this house? The 
features were tantalisingly familiar. Millicent was 
almost sure she had met the grave, sad-looking young 
soldier during her travels. The occasion and time, 
even the year and the continent eluded her. Was it 


Sir Faint Heart 


2x5 


at the Cape? or at Cairo? or at Marion’s? Not at 
Marion’s, she decided. The face was the face of a 
man of twenty-five, it was the countenance of a good 
man, of this the girl felt certain. In some way it 
recalled a face, also a young soldier’s, which she had 
never seen under a black forage cap, but which had 
worn the same expression as the photograph. Many 
times during the following week the lonely young 
creature, idle and empty-minded perforce, found her- 
self scrutinising the picture upon the wall whilst 
thinking, speculating about the man whom it did not 
represent, the grave boy whom she had met a-hunting, 
whom she had since encountered at the buffet, and who 
had suddenly turned gauche, and either had failed to 
see, or had rejected her suggestion that he and his 
elderly companion should share her carriage to Paris. 

So passed a weary week most uneventfully. Mrs. 
Wentworth did not approach her. At morning and 
at evening her voice could be heard below, usually in 
conversation, but once at least in anger, rating Nico- 
letta, who had got at the liquor again. 

Upon the early afternoon of the seventh intermin- 
able day, Millicent’s ears, accustomed to every sound 
of the little house, told her of a new personality, 
and almost as soon as she had made the discovery, 
and before she had placed the fact, even tentatively, 
her stepmother turned the key and entered. “I 
have a surprise for you, Millicent; someone has come 
to see you.” The girl had arisen, expecting she knew 
not what, mutely upon guard. It seemed needless, 
for the woman’s demeanour was friendly — almost too 
much so — the manner was sweet; Mrs. Wentworth 
could be deadly sweet upon occasion. “Just make 
yourself a little tidy, my dear.” (Dear!) “But you 


216 


Who Laughs Last 

are not so bad, after all. You ’ll do. Come as you 
are.” Her shoulder was pressed urgently, not 
unkindly, she was hurried to the stair-head. “There 
is your liberty in the front room if you play your hand 
as it should be played. Some day you will see that I 
have been your best friend through it all. Say as 
little about your father’s doings as you can. You 
have some sense, I suppose — there!” Whilst speak- 
ing, her stepmother was accompanying her down the 
narrow stair, the advice was given in a low tone ; they 
reached the little hall, the front room was thrown 
open, she was pushed in, her cheek was kissed before 
she was aware, she heard the door closed behind her. 
Mrs. Wentworth was gone, laughing. 

The afternoon sun was on the window; silhouetted 
blackly against its brilliancy stood a man looking out, 
who turned at the sound of the latch and faced her 
with hands still clasped behind his back. He in- 
clined to her with graceful but slightly emphasised 
deference. 

“Miss Wentworth, I believe.” The voice was her 
first impression, for he stood in his own light, the 
strong light of the south, to which her north room was 
a stranger, and beyond a general aspect of clean- 
shaven, well-set-up manhood in morning dress she 
hardly realised his aspect; moreover, she had been 
hurried, was unprepared for a man, or for her in- 
terview — bewildered, in a word. Her wits were 
clearing. By his first syllable she knew that the 
caller was a gentleman, and that he was ill at ease. 
Then, detaching itself from externals, the grey tweed 
and coloured tie, the face grew out, the face of the 
photograph ! A trap ! 

“My name is Palgrave — Victor Palgrave, you have 


Sir Faint Heart 


217 


heard Mrs. Wentworth speak of me; she is my half- 
sister, you know.” 

“Oh,” said Millicent, faintly, backing for the door. 
The man’s eyes were as honest and as kind as the eyes 
upon the wall upstairs; they met hers with perfect 
frankness; there was no presumption, or challenge, or 
smirking appeal to a previous understanding in them. 
Whatever his presence signified the man meant well, 
and was doing what he did under pressure. She saw 
that he was increasingly nervous; his hands, which 
were now resting upon the edge of the table between 
them, were pressed so hardly as to bend the finger tips, 
yet they shook. All this the girl took in at a couple 
of frightened glances and remembered later. 

“You have heard of me ? Y ou may even remember 
my — They told me ” 

“Oh!” cried the girl again, light breaking. (“Lib- 
erty? ” “ Someone has come ! ’ ’ This was that woman’s 
scheming! Of course it was all lies, everything she 
uttered was, and this person was some relation of hers 
— oh!) Her distress was infectious; the man’s face 
fell ; it reddened darkly ; he grew painfully embarrassed. 
It is often said that no one can look so absolutely 
guilty as an innocent person. Yet, even in her own 
misery Millicent felt that this man was not chargeable 
with the false position in which he found himself. 

Still facing her he lifted his hand from the table, 
drew from his pocket and laid upon the cloth between 
them a photograph of herself ! He saw her start. 

“Is it possible that there has been a misunderstand- 
ing? This, I mean, I received it — I was told that you 
wished ” 

“I? — who can have told you such — ? I never 
heard of you — or only that there was a brother!” 


218 


Who Laughs Last 

The honest amazement of the lady’s face dispelled the 
man’s last doubt. “As for that thing,” she continued, 
“ I have not seen it for months. It was my father’s — 
he kept it in his — Do you know Mr. Wentworth? 
You cannot mean that he ?” 

“No, oh, no, I assure you I did not mean that at all. 
I have not the pleasure — but I understood, or was 
given to understand ” 

“By whom, please?” 

“By Mrs. Wentworth, my — ” His voice fell pain- 
fully low; he came to a stop, his strong white fingers 
enlaced and crushed one another in his agitation, his 
lower lip working. “I begin to understand, Miss 
Wentworth. My coming is all a mistake. May I ask 
you to believe that it is not my mistake? Pardon me 
one moment ! ” He passed round the table and opened 
the door. Mrs. Wentworth stood there, caught in the 
act of espial. Her brother, as he had professed him- 
self, said nothing, but met her bold smile with a look 
of curbed annoyance. She picked a pin from the floor 
and passed out to the garden. He reclosed the door 
and returned to his position before the window. Milli- 
cent appreciated his tact; she was at liberty to go or 
to stay, but what she might choose to tell him should 
not be overheard by another. Her heart leaped. 
Such a man as this might be trusted. Her tale came 
with a rush. 

“I don’t know you. I think I have hardly heard of 
you. A week ago some one pinned a photograph — 
yours, I suppose, it is in uniform, anyway — pinned it 
to the wall of the room where I am confined. Yes, I 
have had thirty-three days of imprisonment here, in 
a room at the back. It seems impossible. I was 
enticed here from my friend Mrs. Bohun’s house at 


Sir Faint Heart 


219 


Whapshot a month ago; Mrs. Wentworth telegraphed 
saying my father was ill. I came at once and have 
been locked up ever since. I cannot get at my clothes, 
my purse and all have been stolen (kept from me, at 
any rate; it comes really to the same thing), I am not 
allowed to write or to see my father ! I have not been 
able to get a letter through to anybody, or to see the 
Consul; I am just a prisoner and quite helpless. Oh, 
can you? — will you ? — ” Her voice grew penetrating. 

“Hush! Miss Wentworth, please to speak quietly. 
If I am to be of any service, you understand?” He 
pointed towards the door. “Oh, Lord! — Octavia! — 
what next? This beats — ” He bent his head to hide 
the working of his features, and paced the side of the 
room half a dozen times as a caged brute traverses 
its den. 

“ But this won’t do.” He pulled himself up and set 
his brains to work by dint of vigorous external friction. 
“Yes, I will get you out of this. I can manage it — 
that is to say, your friends must ; you can’t ask me to 
go for my poor sister, I could n’t!” Millicent peeped 
for an instant, as it were, through a chink of the man’s 
external personality and got a glimpse of some life- 
long tragedy of affectionate weakness. This was 
the one thing which the young half-brother could not 
do, give away his Tavy, his boyhood’s angel, fallen 
since, but still pathetically, tragically dear. 

For an hour they conversed in guarded tones, plan- 
ning, agreeing, settling details. “Then we under- 
stand one another. You refuse me (pardon! but it is 
really necessity. We must tally in our stories to Tavy, 
you know). I leave this early to-morrow, a disap- 
pointed man, see? — I telegraph to your trustee at 
once — I meet him in Paris; the rest he must do, I 


220 Who Laughs Last 

have no real right to interfere, no legal status, you 
understand.” 

“I suppose you could do no good with the Consul? 
Oh, I see what you mean, he would ask who you were — 
(What a pity you have no passport!) — and what busi- 
ness it is of yours. You cannot claim to be acting for 
my father, as Mrs. Wentworth does. I suppose you 
know best. It is awfully hard to wait, even for 
another three days ; this peep through the prison door 
is almost upsetting.” Her sweet mouth twitched be- 
tween smiles and tears. Palgrave was touched. He 
despised himself, longing with one side of his nature 
to take a strong line, to appeal to authority, to see 
the thing through at all costs, for surely Octavia would 
never put up a fight with such a rotten case as this? 
Then the other side of him demurred ; you never could 
tell what Tavy would do at a pinch; she had got 
enough in her for three men ; it did not do to drive her 
into a comer: anything was possible! After all, the 
thing was to avoid a row. There was Miss Wentworth’s 
name to be considered as well as Octavia’s. As to Mr. 
Wentworth, wherever he was, by all accounts he must 
be an erratic, eccentric, hypochondriacal person, always 
upon the move. Was it conceivable that there was 
something in what Tavy said of him? Palgrave could 
not make up his mind. These were extraordinary 
quarters for the family of an English banker. A 
man’s wife might know a side of her husband’s life of 
which his daughter was ignorant. The absence of a 
passport or anything that vouched for him was unfor- 
tunate. The longer he looked at the fence the bigger 
it grew and the less he liked it, and so the native hue of 
resolution was sicklied o’er by the pale cast of indeci- 
sion. In metallurgy, as we all know, there are amal- 


Sir Faint Heart 


221 


gams to which the addition of minute proportions of 
thorium, or cobalt, give an altogether inexplicable 
tenacity or hardness to the mass. The essential 
spiritual equivalent was missing in Palgrave. A brave 
man and honest, he was no leader of forlorn hopes. 
Nor had this girl, whom he pitied so, breathed into 
him the fire of self-sacrifice which might have flamed 
at the words, “I trust you; take me out of this! ” 

“I hate the thought of leaving you here! but you 
see — !” He began to pace the room again, himself, 
and beating against the wires of his cage. 

“ Do n’t be too distressed, Mr. Palgrave; I can hold 
out for another week, anyhow. Mr. Masson, or some- 
body, or something, will surely turn up before then.” 

He felt that the lady had tacitly eliminated him 
from among the liberating agencies, and writhed 
inwardly but helplessly. It is n’t easy to escape from 
one’s own limitations, the strong coil of old habitudes 
and affections. 

She arose, offering her hand. “Mrs. Wentworth 
will perhaps wish me to sit with herself and you at 
table to-night. I shall decline. Tell her I am feeling 
upset and prefer to keep my room.” 

Palgrave held the door for her; she went wearily 
upstairs. He found his sister in the garden. 

“Don’t tell me she has jilted you! Here! give me 
ten minutes, I will see her myself.” 

“Don’t! I won’t have anything of the sort. You 
shan’t say a word to her!” 

‘ ‘ Bless the boy — ! What next ? Let go my sleeve, 
if you please! Of course if you take my assistance 
that way I won’t interfere. Do you think I was going 
for the young fool with a stick? ” she laughed savagely. 
“Try her again in the morning.” 


222 


Who Laughs Last 

Palgrave made no reply. 

With her brother in the house the woman was bound 
over to good behaviour. When the garden door closed 
behind him next morning, and his footsteps died away 
down the dirty ruelle, Mrs. Wentworth absolved 
herself from her overnight promise and bounced into 
her prisoner’s room before Millicent had risen. The 
girl anticipated a second assault, so furious, so unre- 
strained was the aspect of the dishevelled figure in 
the wrapper which confronted her, thrusting a red, 
incensed visage nearer and still nearer to her face. 

“What did you say to him, you? Answer me! 
Do you know what you have done? — driven from his 
sister’s door the finest, sweetest, best man that ever 
drew breath ! Worth a score of such as you ! A score ? 
— a thousand! Oh, you hussy, you! You minx! 
You idiotic fool, you! Where are your eyes? He is 
infinitely too good for you, and you don’t know it. 
And for you, who have kept his photograph pinned to 
your bedside for goodness knows how long, ogling, 
kissing it night and morning (yes, you did ! I say you 
did !) — for you to send him packing after a single con- 
versation, and when your father wished it to come off, 
and asked him down (he did, I tell you! — contradict 
me again if you dare!) Ah, you mischief-maker! to 
have set him against me for the first time in his life! 
You little, carrot-headed slut, you!” 

Millicent had not spoken since the woman invaded 
her room. She was standing barefooted as she had 
risen from her bed. Her enemy bending over her, 
with strong, rounded arms swinging, twitching, work- 
ing herself up for an attack, stormed herself out of 
breath without eliciting an answer. Again and again 


Sir Faint Heart 


223 


their faces almost touched, the heat of the woman’s 
breath was scarcely tolerable, again and again her 
shoulder lifted and her elbow bent for a blow; some- 
thing restrained it; she went no farther than bitter 
words. For minutes a stinging hail of virulent epi- 
thets fell upon the silent victim, every venomous in- 
sinuation, false aspersion, malignant innuendo which 
a jealous woman’s heart can coin and her tongue utter, 
was discharged over the unresisting girl, flung in the 
white set face with pitiless rancour. Then passion 
broke dam and the creature threw herself across the 
bed in a burst of weeping. She tore the photograph 
from the wall, covering it with tears and kisses. In a 
moment she was up again. 

“There! that must do for the present, but I shall 
have a thing or two to say to you to-night. There 
shall be no coffee served you this morning, Miss 
Wentworth; I wish you a good day!” 

The door slammed behind her, the lock snapped to; 
she bounced into her own room, still talking, dressed, 
and left the house. 

An hour passed — no one stirred below. Was this 
threat of short commons to be construed literally? 
Millicent had risen; she called repeatedly; Nicoletta 
made no response. The prisoner listened at her door, 
the downstair region seemed unusually quiet. She 
rapped the panel, she beat upon it, she tugged the 
hasp — it opened ! 


CHAPTER XX 


COMPLICATIONS 


ASA BOLIVAR — it was Ca Pignatelli, but was 



renamed in an hour of anti-papal fervour by a 
man who had fought in America — is a bit of old St. 
Lopez, long antedating those modem villas, all col- 
oured tiles and nouveau art, which have sprung up like 
brilliant fungi since Paris discovered the place. It is 
a small stone house, dark, low, and uninviting, with 
little windows embowered in prickly coton-aster. Its 
rankly-grown, neglected garden is surrounded by a 
high wall pierced by a single door giving access to a 
smelly lane running between backs of villa gardens, a 
receptacle for rubbish. A board nailed to a eucalyp- 
tus is inscribed maison meubli & louer ou & vendre, and 
from appearances one would suppose the condition to 
be chronic. All paint about the place is sun-blistered 
and faded, the door scrawled with sgraffiti, mason-bees 
are in possession of every crevice. 

On 5th May 19 — the place had been occupied for a 
month and more, but the board was still up ; possibly 
the tenancy was not expected to be permanent. 

It was eight by the clock, but the slatternly little 
house had not unhasped a shutter. Yet its tenants 
were awake; behind the louvres of the front room a 


Complications 225 

woman and a man faced each other across a table laid 
for two. 

It would seem that the woman had risen in haste; 
the effect of her heavy tresses owed less to art than to 
nature. She kept her feet beneath her chair lest her 
low-instepped bedroom slippers should betray the 
absence of stockings. What else might be beneath 
the wrapper of Turkish towelling was mere conjecture; 
a full and handsome figure was certain. She had her 
arm upon the edge of the table and leaned upon it, her 
drapery opening and closing at the throat in time to 
her hurried breathing; it was the dSshabilU of the 
South, where a woman of good family will do her 
gardening and housework in petticoat and shift, secure 
in a convention which decrees her invisible until 
* 1 dressed , ’ ’ but the woman was not of the South . The 
face matched the figure, handsome but a trifle full, 
especially the lips and cheeks. The bold eyes were 
hard, anxious but defiant ; later they might be haggard, 
but the pouting lip and frowning brows gave warning. 
The world was not going well with the woman. 
Although she had neglected her toilet she was for 
dallying over her coffee. Slowly she poured, and 
delayingly she pushed a cup across to the man before 
her, her guest and brother. About the relationship 
there could be no mistake: the features and their 
setting proclaimed it, and there all similarity ended. 
The woman’s mouth was relaxed by self-indulgence ; 
the man’s wore the curb of habitual self-restraint ; her 
boring eye met one as firm but more generous; her 
would-be dominance, her ill-repressed impatience 
were encountered by a forebearing and disciplined 
courtesy. If this were a contest, and it looked like 
the beginning of one, she would not spare him, whilst 

is 


226 


Who Laughs Last 

he would spare her, yet carry his point. In externals 
the discrepancy was just as marked. His English 
tweeds, his linen, and the touch of sober colour at his 
throat, his hair closely cut but not cropped, well- 
shaven cheeks and chin, and small moustache, no less 
than the set of his shoulders and pose, showed the 
military man. A small hand-bag, such as a gentleman 
may carry at a pinch, lay by the door ; the lady flung 
out a hand at it. 

“You weren’t really? Like that! What for? 
There are oceans of time before the Paris train. 
You would n’t have left me without a word — or 
your coffee?” 

“I am awfully sorry to have disturbed ” 

“Stuff! Piffle! As if — Well, all I can say is that 
I am as sorry and upset about it as you are. But 
really, Vic, old chap, I did n’t think it of you. You 
are taking it badly. Some fellows are duck-hearted 
and no mistake ! Praise God we women are not to be 
put off our game at the first bunker or there would be 
precious little marrying and giving in marriage ! That 
thing goes up to your room again; so there!” 

“No, Octavia, I am ” 

“ But you ’ll stay out your leave and try again. It 
is worth it. Do!” 

“ I think not — thanks.” This with a certain reserve, 
which the woman in her impetuosity ignored; she 
drove on. 

“But, Vic, she may change her mind. You are 
strange to her. It is only twenty-four hours. It 
is n’t giving the young stupid a chance. Perhaps she 
does n’t find you come up to the photograph; you take 
badly — always did. It is ridiculous to have come so 
far to put up with the first refusal. Most women 


Complications 227 

say ‘No’ at the go-off. They are never sure of what 
is coming until it actually comes. It is different with 
you. See? Take your coffee, it is spoiling. And I 
say, Vic, I have heaps to tell you, and we ’ve had 
hardly a word ! And it is two years since ” 

“Sorry, Octavia, but I must be moving/’ 

“This is temper’’ — frowning. “I didn’t think I 
had a fool for a brother ! I ’ll swear she was madly 
in love with your ” 

“So you wrote. Yes, I was a fool to come — an 
infernal fool, you are well inside the mark there!’’ 
(with bitterness). “I ’ve no right to be in the 
house. You should have told me; in your letter, I 
mean. I don’t understand this about Mr. Went- 
worth.” 

“ Do you doubt my word, Vic? I tell you again he 
is at Monte Carlo. We sometimes are left like this 
for a fortnight on end. A pretty husband and father! 
Look at the place! a hole, a perfect hovel! But it is 
good enough for us, whilst he is at a swank hotel, I 
suppose. When he has dropped his money, or as 
much as he thinks his partners will stand, he will come 
for us and take us off somewhere. On the cheap it 
will have to be — Port Mahon, perhaps — Philippeville 
possibly, or some economical hotel in Italian Switzer- 
land where we can stick it until his next income is due. 
Oh, if you could but have pulled this off! 1 Him? 1 he 
cares nothing about her! You need not consider his 
feelings. I have to do the thinking for both, I assure 
you ! Try her once more, for my sake ! I ’ll fetch her 
down. Give me a minute ! Oh, you fool, you ! Well, 
if you won’t, you won’t. It is pretty sickening to have 
planned to bring you two together, the two whom I 
love best in the world, and — I kept her for you — you l 


228 


Who Laughs Last 

She is of age in a fortnight — her own mistress, think ! — 
comes into a hatful!” 

“ Don’t! — I won’t hear ” 

“Ass! Idiot! I could swear, I could!” The dark 
eyes blinked and filmed with unshed tears of disap- 
pointment. “Are you and I always to be disgustingly, 
filthily poor? No, you shan’t go like this! I have 
this for you, at any rate. You shall never say again 
that I — Count them, please! You ’ll find enough 
there to cover the last of those three bills you met 
for me. 'Ought you?' Why not? It is your own, 
Vic. Kiss me, Vic!” 

The man had arisen, weighing the envelope un- 
decidedly in hand, then thrust it into his pocket 
unopened, and caught up his bag. Throughout 
the scene his face had worn a medley of expressions: 
shame that was not personal, annoyance bordering 
upon disgust, impatience approaching incredulity, 
all repressed, all controlled by a sorrowful, pitying, 
pained affection, a love often wounded, still alive. 
He kissed her. 

1 1 I ought never to have come. I am angry with my- 
self. And I say, old girl, if you ’ll let me say it, I ’d not 
let myself go — so — quite like this.” His eye observed 
her toilette with gentle disapproval. She shrugged. 

“My poor peignoir? It is nothing. You should 
see the Dutch women in Java! Of course I am not 
dressed; never am at this hour.” 

A key scraped in the lock of the garden door, a hinge 
whined, a low whistle sounded without, and a foot was 
brushing through the sheets of gum-tree bark littering 
the walk. The woman bit her lip and moved to the 
door. The caller, whoever it might be, was upon the 
mat, was within the house. 


Complications 229 

‘'Who is this, Tavy? Look here, get me out first. 
I can’t meet callers. What does he want at this hour 
in the morning?” 

“Don’t get ratty; it is only Major Farintosh, a 
neighbour and friend; awfully good sort, the greatest 
possible help. A regular tame cat; looks in at all 
hours.” 

“So I see, but I can’t see him. I ’m not up to it if 
he was ever so. And you ’ll not receive him like that! 
What are you thinking of?” 

“If you won’t, I must, for Nicoletta is invisibler 
still at the moment, and he can’t stand there all day.” 
He heard her speaking fast and low in the passage; it 
sounded like an appointment. 

“All right, the ten-forty-five. Don’t run it fine. 
Salue!” The Farintosh person was gone. His sister 
was back again holding the bosom of her robe together. 
“It is all your fault, Vic, dragging me out of bed to 
head you off and give you coffee at this time! Oh, he 
won’t think another thought about it. A dear old 
poodle of a creature, as old as the hills!” 

The man did n’t like it. He did n’t like a great deal 
that he had seen and heard ; the whole thing was wrong. 
He had been disgusted with himself for having come, 
but was growing glad that he had come. Precisely 
what was amiss in some directions, or how deep the 
mischief went, he was not prepared to say, but mis- 
chief there was, and his cue seemed to be to get out of 
the house before his suspicions were suspected, and to 
despatch that telegram. Poor Tavy always had been 
a wrong ’un, and was so still; always had been a liar, 
and retained the habit; so much was plain. 

He stepped out into the lane, the door fell-to behind 
him and locked itself ; the warmth of the strong morn- 


230 


Who Laughs Last 

ing sun lay upon a northern wall. It would be hot 
presently. What an ass he had made of himself ! He 
had trusted Tavy, and had been had — as usual! 
Could he blame himself? The letter had seemed as 
straight as a thing could be. She had said the girl had 
fallen in love with his photograph, and had allowed 
her stepmother to send him hers. Such things did 
happen, he supposed. Tavy had besought him to 
come for a visit, his coming could do no harm, and 
might lead to so much. She had said that the invita- 
tion was from her husband, who understood the posi- 
tion, and, knowing the financial circumstances of his 
brother-in-law, had sent a return ticket. That had 
really fetched him. He could not conceive Tavy 
spending a dollar upon him on her own : he had mis- 
judged her there, at all events; her notes burned in his 
pocket. It had been a clever plant, and he had 
tumbled to it! had applied for a fortnight’s leave upon 
urgent private affairs, and had come: had arrived 
yesterday and was returning to-day! It was all 
wrong. Nothing was right, except the girl, who was 
right enough, poor thing ! He commiserated her from 
the bottom of his heart, and intended to help her — 
would help her, if he could. He had that name on his 
cuff, and would wire to the lawyer-man, and meet him 
in Paris if he kept the appointment. More he could 
not promise ; it was asking too much of a fellow. He 
had n’t it in him to round upon his own sister publicly. 
The family must settle the thing without his appear- 
ing in it. 

That telegram pressed. He found the Bureau des 
Postes, which, as is usual abroad, seemed big enough 
for an English town of a hundred thousand souls, 
secured some forms, and, as the tables were occupied 


Complications 231 

by brown-faced conscripts scratching letters to their 
people with clogged pens and dusty ink, adjourned to 
a caf6 across the plane-tree-shaded Place Magenta, 
sat him down, and began to plan out his despatch. A 
gargon at his elbow hemmed expectantly. “ Oh, er, of 
course ; caf6-au-lait et petit-pain, s’il vous plait.” The 
man trotted off, a slouching figure in brown corduroys 
at the next table swung itself up into an attitude of 
attention; it was a dusty and heavily-shod figure, its 
bags ridiculously tight at the ankle and absurdly full 
at the hip, with a tasselled necktie at the throat of a 
coarse flannel shirt, the whole topped up by a high- 
crowned felt, from beneath the slouched brim of which 
peeped a curly chin. 1 4 What weird freaks these south- 
ern French make of themselves!” was the inward 
comment of the Englishman, conscious of a well-cut 
Norfolk jacket and perfectly-creased trousers. His 
eye returned to the despatch, but the fellow beside 
him turning, thrust out a hand. 

“ Pal, old man , don't you know me?" 

He gasped, but of course there was no scene; racial 
tradition and the rule of their service forbade, but 
after the hands of Bilty Winterbourne and Victor 
Palgrave had clasped and separated there remained 
much to be asked and answered. If the tongues ran 
a little faster than usually, be sure the tones were low 
and the quick bright eyes were the only features which 
betrayed their pleasure. 

“But, my dear man, what are you doin’ here?” 

“If it comes to that what are you doin’ here 
yourself? We ’d better own up and have done, 
had n’t we?” (Laughter upon the lower regis- 
ter.) 

“But when you sent in your papers the mess under- 


232 


Who Laughs Last 

stood that you were goin’ in for bankin’. 4 You never 
said so,’ — I know, but ” 

Mr. Palgrave suddenly found himself upon delicate 
ground. If one is recognised and addressed by an old 
friend, a man upon whose character no smirch has 
ever rested, and upon looking the dear fellow over 
discovers that he is wearing the most unholy togs, 
and has let his beard grow, and, in short, has disguised 
himself as a silly Frenchman, and a French country- 
man at that, and is looking far from flush, why — what 
is one to talk about after the first recognition? I mean, 
what questions would be discreet, and all that? Billy 
saw his friend’s dilemma and broke in. 

“Look here, Pal, of course I know what you want 
to be askin’. It ’s natural. I ’ll tell you what 
nobody in the mess knows, and very few outside. 
Fact is I ’ve had a row with my people and have 
been interned at a place near here on — well — a remit- 
tance (not to beat about the bush, you know). So, 
naturally, not wishing to make myself an object to 
the natives, I dress as they dress. Now you see.” 

Palgrave saw, and his eyes settled into the softness 
of compassion; he couldn’t help it. The word lay 
with him; something he must say; to murmur “Sorry, 
old chap!” and to change the topic, would be too 
banal. Best speak from the heart and have done. 
He knew Billy well enough ; he would understand. As 
he moistened his lips for a difficult speech an idea 
struck him. 

“Wait a bit, Billy, this is a bit of a go; yes, quite a 
go. Now, when I was in a hole you came down like a 
man. I told you something of my circumstances, it 
was only fair, for I did n’t see my way to repayment in 
any reasonable time. But it seems your turn to be in 


Complications 233 

a hole, and I ’m going to put it straight to you — Am 
I the cause of this — er — bust-up with your folks?” 

‘ ‘ Pal , what a question ! How could you have been ? ’ ’ 

“Not good enough, Billy! Very poor actin’, my 
son. You ’ll never succeed as Ananias. Now, out 
with it all, or as much as you like. For it ’s plain 
as daylight that cheque was at the bottom of it.” 

“If it was, you were n’t, Pal. No, don’t! I really 
— ” for Palgrave was counting out Bank of France 
notes from an envelope upon the table, swearing 
hoarsely under his breath, a deeply-moved young 
Englishman. He returned the money to the cover 
and forced it upon his friend with heat. “Take it! 
There ’s your hundred ! Oh, Lord ! what a sinful pity! 
You pulled me out and fell back in! God forgive me 
for a selfish beggar! Oh, a deed selfish beggar! And 
I ’ll be hanged if the thought of this ever crossed my 
mind. Oh, this is the worst of all — the very, very 
worst!” The man was so evidently referring to other 
and more recent troubles that Billy, now pretty well 
accustomed to his own burden, recognised the groan 
of the heavy-laden and came into it. 

“Don’t, old chap! I ’m all right; got used to it, 
and was havin’ a decentish time, until last night. 
Now — but I ’m not goin’ to bother you with all my 
messin’ rows and worries. It ’s your turn to own up. 
You are in a hole again, I can see, so chuck it off the 
chest! Ten to one I can pull you through again! 
Cough it up! Begin! Start! Quick-march!” 

“ Oh, Billy, Billy ! what a fellow you are ! What are 
my little troubles to yours? Well, I do want a fellow 
who understands these French forms to fill in a good 
long telly wag for me. Oh, you stick the body of the 
message there, do you? And the address here? 


234 


Who Laughs Last 

Thanks, well, let me get this off first, and then I ’ll 
give you an idea of what brought me down here. 
By-the-bye, what is the nearest London post-office for 
a wire to a fellow in Southampton Row? ” 

A long and costly message was composed, fair- 
copied, and despatched, Billy showing his friend the 
proper guichet , but ignorant of purport and destina- 
tion. This done, the friends adjourned to the station 
carrying the hand-bag by turns, no farther concession 
could Billy’s entreaty obtain. There, with half-an- 
hour to the good, they sat them down and the exile 
heard all the news of his mess and of the camp: 
how Killerby had broken his wrist at Hawthorn Hill 
and had taken the opportunity to have his appendix 
removed. “Sportin’ chap, Killerby,” and so forth; 
and how little Majoribanks was still looking for a 
servant with Trilbys small enough to break in his 
boots for him. “Most amazin’ useless little tootsi- 
cums that fellow has, can’t hold the stirrup.” But 
when a man’s heart is as full as was Victor Palgrave’s 
and when he runs up against the one friend he has in 
the world, sympathy he must have, so Billy learnt the 
state of things at an unlocalised villa inhabited by 
persons unnamed. 

“I got here yesterday, you see. They — well, they 
wrote that the lady had formed an attachment for me. 
(Don’t grin, this is dead serious for me, at any rate, 
and for her, poor girl, as you will jolly soon see.) An 
attachment for me, as I was goin’ to tell you, by look- 
ing at my photograph, you understand — so they said. 
They sent me hers, and let me believe it was her doing. 
See? Said she was badly mashed on me, Billy. So 
they asked me to come at once. They said both her 
parents wished it. (There is a stepmother in this, I 


Complications 235 

ought to tell you.) And they sent a Cook’s return- 
ticket, first-class. :Now, what did that look like? 
What would you have done? It fetched me. I had 
not the ghost of a suspicion. Oh, I am no good at 
telling a story. I should have said that I ’m mixed 
up with the family, they know all about me, and have 
done for years. The father is supposed to be a pretty 
oofy old chap ; but that, I trust, would n’t have been 
the attraction to me. I hope to God I am speaking 
the truth ! It looks awful black against me, I admit ; 
but you ’ll see. So I applied for leave and came. 
Billy, the thing is a ramp, a fake! Absolute! It 
makes me sick ! I should like to kick myself from here 
to Famborough! Where the man is — I mean the 
father — I can’t make out. The girl — the lady, I 
should say, his daughter — was telegraphed for from 
England a month and more ago upon the score of his 
health. Another lie, as she believes. She came at 
once, she has never been allowed to see him. Nor 
can she get a note through to him. She is told he is 
at Monte Carlo on the steady gamble; can’t tear him- 
self away from the tables. Which is their tale to me, 
too, but I simply disbelieve it, for the lady tells me 
that he was never that way — (hated it !) In fact, it was 
the stepmother that is that way, and the man has had 
all his work to keep her within bounds, and could n’t, 
and so was always travelling about, voyages and 
all that, where there were no tables. Y ou follow me ? ’ * 

“Right-oh, get along, Pal ! By George /” muttered 
the listener. 

“So I came. I found the lady practically a pris- 
oner. The villa is a hole of a place, walled in like a 
private asylum. She is within a few days of being her 
own mistress, and comes into money. As for my 


236 


Who Laughs Last 

photo, that was sheer fairy-tales. I was admitted to 
her and found myself, as you can imagine, in the 
awkwardest fix I ever was in in my life. Awful ! It 
makes me hot to think of it! What the poor child 
must have taken me for before we came to an under- 
standing Heaven alone knows! But we did. Now I 
am working for her. She gave me the address of her 
trustee. That wire was to ask him to meet me in 
Paris, where I can give him pointers. No, Billy, I 
can’t stay here and help. Family reasons make it 
quite impossible.” 

Billy nodded sagely, suspecting much, knowing 
nothing. Palgrave went on. “You see I had to 
finesse a bit. If they thought I was giving the show 
away they might leave the place and take the girl 
with them. Oh, yes, they are pretty unscrupulous, 
and mean business. It is all very well to say she need 
not go, but what is she to do? I don’t think she has 
a sou, or a jewel she could pawn.” He smote his 
thigh. “What a double-distilled common donkey I 
am! I should have supplied her with money, of 
course! I can’t go back, they would see. Well, it 
won’t be for long ! As I was saying, a girl of twenty 
may be as capable as you please in circumstances she 
understands, but may be pretty helpless if she has 
only the things she stands up in, and knows nobody 
within six or seven hundred miles. Now, Billy, what 
price that for a rotten show? I did n’t sleep a wink 
all night thinking it over. Of course I might have 
asked her to run away with me, but that is just what 
her people want her to do, to entangle us and force 
her into a marriage.” 

“And, er — ” began Billy, out of his depth where 
the affections were concerned, and feeling his way 


Complications 237 

cautiously with a man four years his senior. “I say, 
Pal, I suppose when you did see her it did n’t — you 
know what I mean — it sort of did n’t occur to you to 
propose? Perhaps she was n’t your sort,” he added, 
offering the excuse of incompatibility for his friend’s 
failure to seize occasion by the forelock. 

“ Awfully nice girl, if that is what you mean. At 
least, I think you would say so. Don’t understand 
girls myself; never been in a position to think about 
marrying, you know. But, really, how the deuce 
could I? After all, there are some things a fellow 
can't do, you know. If the lady were free, and upon 
her own ground, I mean, I don’t say; but with her in 
there it would have been too jolly like rushing her, 
would n’t it? Anyhow I did n't. Felt too utterly 
sick with the way things had turned out. Oh, Lord ! 
And the poor thing’s eyes! It took me all my time 
to convince her that that was just what I did not mean. 
Once I had made her believe that we could talk freely, 
and fix things up, she trusted me as a brother, you 
know. Oh, I could not go back upon her and begin 
the other thing, Billy. Besides, that would have been 
playing their game for them. No ! It is all very well 
for you to say ‘Why not?’ You don’t know all the 
ins and outs by a lot, my son. If they could have 
brought the match off they were reckoning upon her 
money. They know me well enough to know that as 
her husband I must have stood in. It is my way, 
Billy; my weakness. You can say ‘ No.’ I can’t — to 
some people. ” He hung his head, there are men made 
so who go through life paying, paying, knowing all the 
time that their sacrifices do no good to those who 
exploit and impoverish them, yet unable to break 
away; Love’s debtors to the sad last! 


238 


Who Laughs Last 

“Well, old man, here comes the train. No, I don’t 
see how you could take a hand. ’ ’ The boy’s eyes were 
volunteering, but Palgrave did not respond; evidently 
there were reserves, reasons why Billy should not. 
He could not press his assistance upon his friend, over- 
powered or overparted although that friend might be. 
Palgrave climbed into his carriage. The train began 
to move, Winterbourne walked beside it. “Look 
here, Pal, I don’t like taking this silly money. I 
don’t want it, and you do. Here you are!’’ 

“No, you don’t!” laughed Palgrave, putting his 
hands behind him and blocking the window with 
head and shoulders. “I shall never want it again.” 

“Never is a long word. ‘ Umbrufen' you idiot!” 
cried Billy, trotting along beneath him, frustrated in 
his design to throw the envelope into the compartment. 
“ I don’t need it, I tell you; I swear I shall never touch 
it!” 

“‘Touch wood!’” laughed Palgrave. 

“Done!” shouted Billy, reaching his friend’s head 
with a leap, and the last that either saw of the other was 
a face rosy with laughter and good-will. Oh, blessed 
youth, which finds its merriment in everything beneath 
the sun ! Each felt the stronger in that he had lifted 
the load of his fellow whilst making light of his own. 

Palgrave was gone. Billy turned to make his 
second reconnaissance of the private hotel called Le 
Tertre in the Avenue Marengo. He was aware by 
this time that his dress was a perfect domino, but such 
a disguise has its disadvantages. How was he to 
obtain an interview with his mother in these clothes? 
What excuse could he offer to the concierge? What 
business has a young vigneron en fete with an English 
lady? 


CHAPTER XXI 

BILLY IN THE THICK OF IT 

A S it turned out he had waited a minute too long. 

A motor was at the door, two ladies got in; he 
quickened, but they were off. One was a welter- 
weight, he recognised her; the other was his mother. 
The place looked like a private hotel. After con- 
sideration he rang the service-bell, and learnt that 
Madame Bohun would not be back, before the aprts- 
midi; miladi might be expected to fiveoclocquer at 
quatre-heures-et-demi , but was uncertain, ah, most 
erratic! With seven or eight hours to wear through, 
Billy, who had never seen St. Lopez before, nor made 
acquaintance at close quarters with the blue midland 
sea, filled himself with the food of the country prepara- 
tory to seeking some quiet spot for a siesta. Since he 
had left his bed he had put in seven hours walking, 
nor knew what further exertion might be demanded 
of him before night. Nature called a halt, yet the 
life of the streets drew him; a month of dead-alive 
Callouris had sharpened an appetite for the world he 
had left, its men and its women, or their French ana- 
logues, those who were passing his al fresco luncheon- 
table, nattily shod, brilliantly dressed, sparkling, 
pleasant-featured, vivacious creatures, carrying their 
239 


240 


Who Laughs Last 

clothes as only Frenchwomen can. And their men, 
as to whom Billy grew uncharitably critical. (He is 
older to-day.) And those others, the comer-men and 
loafers, the nondescript casual labourers, or out-o’- 
works of the Midi, basking in the first warmth, and 
independent of shelter for another six months at least 
— what of them, the pot-bellied, unbraced, slouching, 
round-shouldered under the dusty bush of a cabaret? 
Here, again, by virtue of his mask, this cat might 
without offence take stock of this king, this mler 
whose vote sends ministries packing and decrees war 
or peace. Billy, who knew the danger, read him, his 
leer, his cruel covetous eye, vices limited by poverty, 
jealously controlled by fear. Alieni appetens — (the 
women, the villas, the equipages, the yachts at the 
mdle) sui profusus — (his last sou gone for a petit verre 
of the stuff that debilitates). A being incapable, for 
the life of him, of subduing a lust, or of taking the first 
step, by way of honest work, towards materialising 
his desires. A decadent this over whom doom hangs. 

Thence the sea-front and its hotels called him. 
From the garage of the biggest and most glorious a 
great, yellow-carriaged motor slid silently, turned in its 
own length, and shot past him and away. The solitary 
driver was hidden by a mass of roses; Billy thought 
he had seen that machine before, possibly upon one of 
the roads near the Camp, and only when it was by 
recognised its after-carriage, and knew it for the 
deck-load of the Channel steamer. 

“Boss gawn coast-road east. Drivin’ his silly self. 
4 Back in an hour.’ Them ’s his words.” 

The little dark fellow who lifted his chin to mutter 
into the ear of a taller man was not English, whilst 
the other, who received the confidence with a tight- 


241 


Billy in the Thick of It 

lipped nod, was the man whom the boy had seen exam- 
ining this auto upon the boat, the Irishman whom the 
dictatorial American had held up and threatened. 
This one was standing in the open door of a gun- 
maker’s, or rather a shop for the sale of magazine 
pistols, and such wares as Cannes , laced with knotted 
catgut and labelled 11 pour atteindre le figure ,” weapons 
adapted to lay a man’s cheek open or destroy an eye. 
Meanwhile, his communication given, the smaller man 
strolled back to the garage, cleaning his hands upon a 
ball of cotton-waste. Billy noticed with unconcerned 
wonder the empty sling hanging from his neck, as 
though for a hurt hand in the final stage of convales- 
cence. The big man turned into the shop again and 
chose a pair of motorist’s green goggles with mask 
attachment. Neither of the men had given a thought 
to the sashed and pantalooned Provencal . Why 
should they? He gave as little to them, and strolled 
on, leaving the town behind him. As he passed from 
the limestone to the porphyry all cultivation ceased, 
the road became a serious piece of engineering ; a con- 
tinuous terrace blasted through red rock along the 
faces of precipitous headlands, an artificial cliff, 
scarred by drill and fuse upon one hand, upon the 
other a sheer descent to the sea. The parapet was low 
and interrupted by gaps stopped by guard-rails. Billy 
leaned over at a comer and saw fig trees and prickly 
pear sprouting from chinks of live rock. The road 
follows the sinuosities of the coast, and though won- 
derfully graded, well-cambered, and kept, is twisty 
and blind ; nor too wide for its traffic, no prevision of 
the motor having visited its engineers. Some of its 
hair-pin turns, thought Billy, were not to be taken at 
speed, but so thought not the drivers of the powerful 

16 


242 


Who Laughs Last 

cars which whirled past him, rounding the blindest 
angles at anything under forty-five after a perfunctory 
fantasia upon their nightingales. Except by slow- 
moving stone carts the highway seemed shunned by 
horse traffic. He saw no cyclists, nor knew that with 
the exception of telegraph messengers, the rider of the 
bicyclette had been driven off the Comiche years 
before. Where a dry water-course descending from 
the hills was spanned by a bridge the young English- 
man left the highway for the ravine and was presently 
enjoying a patch of shadow two hundred feet aloft, a 
shallow cave, or abri, as the shepherds would have 
called it, who had used it for centuries; a solid juniper 
of untold antiquity leaned over it and shed brown 
needles upon its floor; it faced due east, and thus was a 
perfect protection from the mistral, the only wind that 
the Midi fears. There was no wind of any sort that 
day. The red rocks began to exhale heat, and the air 
to dance reels above them. Billy, extending himself 
luxuriously upon his elastic bed, found a pebble annoy- 
ing his knee-cap, dug it out, and beheld a live car- 
tridge; nor was it one for a smoothbore, but for a 
rifled barrel of some kind, and further the deadly little 
thing had been nicked with a knife in such wise as to 
make it soft-nosed. The ex-lieutenant knew that if it 
had ever got home it would have “sat up” with the 
ghastliest results. “Now, that is what I call baiting 
a trap with poisoned meat,” said he, turning the thing 
between thumb and finger. “Whether you are shoot- 
ing for the pot, or for the skin, you don’t want to knock 
game to smithereens.” That the missile might have 
been intended for a human enemy never crossed his 
mind, nor that the jumble of rocky hills around him 
was haunted ground with a detestable record. His- 


243 


Billy in the Thick of It 

tory of any sort was not his strong point, nor is it 
any one’s business to read up the tale of the Esterels, 
that sterile range which sheltered a hard-bitten race, 
alternately the victims and the confederates of pirates, 
Norsemen and Moor. Their stubborn resistance to 
the Emperor Charles’s invasion of Provence after 
Pavia was only overcome by burning them out whole- 
sale, an atrocity worthy of Attila. Cypress forests 
once destroyed do not recover in a day; the ground 
tumbled back into heath and juniper, the haunt of 
boar and lynx, and of men who could not have made an 
honest living had they tried, and who had no intention 
of trying. This Alsatia blocked the routes between 
France and Italy until within living memory. Bona- 
parte at the height of his power could never ensure his 
communications, and travelled this piece of road with 
a strong escort. To this hour it is none of the safest. 
The worst subjects of both countries make for it as a 
fox makes for his earth. A military deserter, or a 
wanted man, is sure of breathing-time ; he may even 
do a bit on his own: club and rob a visitor within a 
hundred yards of a hotel and skip to the woods; lie 
up for the day and break covert twenty miles off 
toward Grasse or Valescure, or Callouris on the other 
side of the great communal forest, which he crosses by 
night, as did Billy. But of these incidents the average 
visitor to the C6te d’Azur knows as little as did young 
Winterbourne, who supposed himself to be, and owing 
to his dress was, about as safe as a tramp upon the 
Portsmouth Road. 

Fit, full, and with nothing to do for hours, he pro- 
posed to enjoy himself. A sportsman’s appreciation 
of weather and scenery is apt to be affected by their 
suitability for his favourite sport. Your English 


244 Who Laughs Last 

squire, with interests centred in his pheasant-coops 
finds the Engadine in August deficient in game. His 
heir, impatient to be getting that filly up from grass, 
and dreaming of five-o’clock meets in dewy woodlands 
where the young entry sticks its nose into wasps’ nests, 
and the untutored cub runs rings, sees too much covert 
at Arolla, and declares the Tyrol unrideable. We 
know the hunting man’s idea of nice open weather, 
and his dislike of clear starlights and the ringing roads 
that stop hounds. Billy, stretched at his length in 
his patch of black shadow, let his thoughts stray back 
to the fields of home. How had the season finished? 
With a forest meet? Had they had a dry time? Did 
hounds carry it with a cry over the mossy carpet 
beneath the firs, but come to their noses at every patch 
of arable, and go mutely feathering and feeling their 
way across late-sown barley in a cloud of dust of their 
own raising, whilst the First Flighters waited on 
in breathless silence? Or had it been a dropping 
April? Should he picture six of the hardest, the sur- 
vivors, upon blown, lathered horses, muddied to the 
houghs, cropping from the high gravel bank to a boggy 
bottom, to lob cautiously over rotten ground down to 
the brook calling upon their half-baked gees in the last 
few strides? For some it would be “Over,” for others 
“In”; and the best man of the Brake shut eyes and 
smiled aloud at the picture his fancy had drawn for 
him. And marvelled to find himself smiling. For what 
would some of the mess, Killerby, for example, make 
of this place? The chromolith blue of sea and sky, 
these hot orange rocks, the sharp outlines of distant 
capes, the dusty grey of sparse foliage? “H — 1 of 
a place! Not a huntin’ country. The motors drive 
you off the roads, and there ’s no ridin’ anywhere else. 


245 


Billy in the Thick of It 

Dash ! ’ ’ The boy chuckled, hearing with the inner ear 
the sharp staccato syllables he knew so well, and 
appreciating a point of view which he found himself 
ceasing to share. For this lonely purgatory had its 
compensations. He was a prisoner, if you will, but 
one whose innocency had made a hermitage of his 
stone walls and had wreathed his cage’s iron bars with 
flowers. That jolly old Masson — (City acquaintance 
would have stared at the adjective) — had put his 
feet upon the ladder. Old Pennegwent had shoved 
him up it. He would never draw, but a fellow can 
hardly share digs with an artist and learn nothing. 
Billy, permitted to watch in silence the wash slabbed 
on as a wet mess which dried to the burning sky of 
Callouris, had held his breath and seen dabs of chrome, 
splashes of umber, and touches of cobalt grow up 
around blank, uninvaded paper, until there stood a 
campanile steeped in sunshine, a dazzling white finger 
pointing heavenward. He had acquired a colour-sense. 
From this shaded outlook he could watch the crawling 
sapphire sea below, and a short stretch of road upon 
either side of a headland so sharp as to have necessi- 
tated a cut through its extremity which had left a 
detached pyramidal rock some forty feet in height at 
its seaward angle. Billy, overlooking this stack, saw 
amid the tamarisk upon its summit a depression like 
the form of a hare. He had learned by this time that 
the true wild cat, so rare in Britain, is common in the 
Alpes Maritimes, and spied upon the empty lair with 
interest. Gulls were passing coastwise; he kept his 
glasses going, the sun, the air, and the beauty of the 
scene were too stimulating for sleep. Tiny “Orange- 
tips ” fluttered and alit near him ; he did not know that 
they were rare, or that this nook of the Esterels was 


246 


Who Laughs Last 

their one haunt north of the Mediterranean. Some- 
thing moving darkly over the surface of the sea caught 
his eye; an eagle, surely, yet it seemed small for an 
eagle, although wide of wing. Nearer and more near 
it flapped, showing the pale crown and liver-and- white 
body- tints of an osprey! It was travelling eastward 
with the gulls and would pass just behind the sugar- 
loaf rock beneath. He focussed carefully, following 
the deceptively lazy flight of the noble bird, now prac- 
tically extinct as a British species. It flagged along on 
easy pinion, thrown up against the wrinkled blue of the 
sea below, and passed behind the tuft of lentisk. 
Hillo! What the dickens? The bird was forgotten, 
for a man lay in the cat’s lair ! How had he got there? 
Billy had seen nobody climb the rock ; there must be 
access to its summit by its seaward face. Something 
in the brush beside him glistened ; the man was doubt- 
less a shore-gunner, one of the chasseurs who slay robin 
and wren for the pot; but this was gunning out of 
season. 

Afar along the Comiche sounded the hoot of a motor- 
horn ; the boy had a glimpse through a gap in the con- 
tour of two autos racing. They were hidden the next 
moment, but he had an impression that one had drawn 
level. The sportsmanship of the thing appealed to him ; 
to keep pegging away, neck-and-neck, along a road like 
this, where a defect in the steering-gear, or the slightest 
lapse of nerve meant death (let alone the high proba- 
bility of meeting some other joker sprinting cheerfully 
in the opposite direction), was alluring! When the 
cars showed again for a moment they were no longer 
abreast ; the challenger had passed, or had been stalled- 
off , and fallen back ; upon either hypothesis the follow- 
ing car was too close. Both had yellow carriages and 


247 


Billy in the Thick of It 

seemed much of a size ; the pace was hot. Again they 
passed from sight, and would hardly emerge until just 
before rounding the angle beneath the shore-gunner’s 
ambuscade. That piece of road, a horse-shoe with its 
toe to seaward, lay a couple of hundred feet below 
Billy’s juniper-shaded shelter; he marvelled how they 
would take it, and at what speeds ; they were due in 
a couple of seconds. Bang-Bang! Ka-krashh ! . . . 
Splash! A shard of bright metal spun up from be- 
hind a rock. The accompanying sounds had been 
practically simultaneous, and implied an accident of 
some sort ; he hoped nothing worse than a burst tire, 
though such a mishap upon such a track, and in such 
proximity, might mean anything. The motors had 
not reappeared ; in an instant he was leaping, sliding, 
scrambling downhill with small respect for neck and 
limbs. He struck the'lip of the scarp at an impossible 
place ; a drop of twenty-five feet compels detour and 
caution. Nor could he get near enough to sefe what 
was happening at the foot of the declivity. The 
climber had to use strong constraint to repress swear- 
ing ; he was vexed with himself for his waste of time 
and foozled approach. Into the road he dropped at 
last where a big yellow motor lay upon its side, 
smashed, as it had skidded into the landward face of 
the terrace, and disintegrated piecemeal. A wheel 
lay here, two farther on, a raffle of cushion-stuffing 
and cloaks, a stepney, smashed lamps, steering-gear 
and brakes, torn rubber and twisted metal-work 
strewed the track. Something lying partially be- 
neath a mass of cylinders and heavy stuff was mut- 
tering intermittently with a sinking cadence. Billy 
believed himself to be doing nothing; he was lifting, 
straining, levering himself in to the rescue. He had 


248 


Who Laughs Last 

got to the man (a chauffeur by his dress, and Southern 
French by his features) in time to see him die. Never 
before had he seen death in any form, but was under no 
misapprehension. This was dissolution; there are 
injuries which do not leave one in doubt. He steadied 
himself with sharply-bitten lip; what was the right 
thing to do ? What was the next step to take? 

1 1 Say, young man, what does all this mean ? ’ ’ Some 
one lying between the overturned chassis and the rock 
was speaking with a note of captious annoyance and 
protest, as a man speaks who has been rudely awak- 
ened from sleep, who feels that he has a grievance, but 
is not sure of its extent, and talks to fill in time and 
keep the floor. “Now, what — ? Oh, this won’t do 
for me. Where is Gaston? ~Ex-ceedingly careless, I 
must say. Ahh!" Realisation was dawning, and 
possibly pain, for the note changed, grew plaintive, 
ran up and became urgent. “Mirandy! You there? 
— Wherever! — Who? I . . . can't! Mi-randy , I say ! ” 

But what the sufferer would have said, or whom he 
thought he was addressing, will never be known, for 
the strong if difficult articulation weakened and failed. 
Billy had reached the speaker, and knelt beside him 
in the dust, supporting a great smashed head hung 
with heavy grey locks. The broken hands fumbled 
and waved, the lower limbs did not move. The 
staring eyes, fixed upon Billy’s, grew desperate 
with unspoken appeals ; a hundred half-matured 
schemes, appointments, arrangements, urgent, impera- 
tive, competed for priority. Will, Mind, Memory 
’phoned their orders to faltering brain. It could no 
more! The lips moved, but no sounds came, nor 
breath; then, all suddenly the eyes rolled up and 
fixed, the head upon Billy’s supporting knee grew 


249 


Billy in the Thick of It 

heavier, the falling jaw drew the already disfigured 
countenance into a ghastly rictus. This man, too, 
had passed. 

A fellow may have lived the open-air life from boy- 
hood, have seen unpleasant accidents and afforded 
first aid, taken fifty tosses, and seen a hundred men 
fall, and helped to extricate the fallen, yes, and to carry 
a friend upon a hurdle, even (in the presence, and 
under the directions of older men), without turning 
more than a few hairs, and yet, when he finds himself 
left with two mangled corpses, and no doctor within 
hail, nor any one to consult, may feel his inwards give 
way. Billy had this humiliating experience, and 
despised himself quite needlessly. 

“H’whell! an’ how will this bunco-steerer turned 
playbhoy be feeling now? How d’ ye find yersilf, 
sor? Gosh! an’ ’tis the wrong mahn, afther all!” 

Winterbourne raised his eyes from the corpse to 
find himself face to face with a tall, rough-looking 
fellow who was leaning across the wreckage, scrutinis- 
ing the features of the second victim of the disaster. 
The scrutiny appeared to induce neither pity nor 
horror. He began to curse himself for being several 
sorts of fool. “The cyar is the cyar, right enough, 
tho’ how the blasuz comes this palaverin’ coyote of a 
Mormon Elder on board her instid of the Boss, bates 
me!” At this point the speaker became aware of the 
dead driver. “Blessud Biddy! who ’s this? A chuf- 
fer? I never see no chuff er! There was no chuff er! 
’T is seeing double I am. ’T is a drunk mahn I am 
this day, an’ mesilf that has sworn off liquor until the 
job was done!” 

Billy’s mind was clearing. He had some recollec- 
tions of the voice, and was sure of the face : this would 


250 


Who Laughs Last 

be the taller of the two, the man whom he had watched 
through the shop window an hour back, the owner of 
the big knife upon the Channel boat. What he was 
doing here, and what his remarks might imply, were 
matters which must wait. Billy, overweighted and 
full-handed, could not apply his mind to such ques- 
tions. He had not spoken. 

Suddenly the Irishman wheeled upon him with out- 
thrust chin and truculent mouth. “Polley-voo Fran - 
say , munsheer? Have ye a worrud of English, by anny 
chance? ” 

Too sick to articulate, the boy wagged a deplorable 
head to signify his incapacity for conversation at the 
moment. The man looked him over with crafty sus- 
picion. “Shure, ’t is wan of thim Eye-tahlians that 
savvy nothing but their own patwoy.” 

He shrugged disgustedly at the ruined machinery, 
stepped across the pool of petrol, which had somehow 
escaped ignition, and strode swiftly away, detaching a 
long-barrelled magazine-pistol from some kind of skele- 
ton stock, and bestowing the separated parts in inner 
pockets as he went. 

Again Billy was alone. What had become of the 
second car? 


CHAPTER XXII 

STILL THICKER 

Y ES. What had become of the other car? “I 
don’t think it can have gone on. If it did it 
must have stopped and re-started. I made such a 
row sprinting down that I might not have heard it. 
It cannot have gone back, for the one carrying two was 
behind when I last had them in the glass. Not to 
have pulled up would be brutal! He must have 
stopped, and in slowing would have run on into yiew, 
and I must have seen him before I began to run. But 
I didn’t! Then, where on earth — ?” A bewildered 
young man stood in the midst of the tom-up road 
steadying his wits. A big car, to say nothing of its 
driver, cannot go to ground. This one had demateria- 
lised, evaporated, faded like the baseless fabric of a 
vision, leaving a wreck behind! Then light broke. 
The low stone parapet of the road is crenellated by 
intervals fenced with fir poles; from the gap next to 
the wrecked car the pole was missing. Billy stepped 
to the edge and peered over. The sea moved gentle 
and green some seventy feet below, but the cliff was 
not sheer; ledges intervened clothed with brushwood, 
through which the descent of some bulky body had 
tom a path. The leading car had jumped the track! 

251 


252 


Who Laughs Last 

There were fresh markings upon the rocks. A leather 
gauntlet hung in a bush; the foot of the crag was 
hidden. 

Billy groaned. The burden was heavy, but must be 
shouldered. “Not a nice place at all, though some 
fellows would make nothing of it; anyway, here goes! ” 
He went. It was not a place for a solitary climber 
with shaken nerve; the boy stopped twice to wipe his 
face, and three times to get breath and to rid himself 
of some particularly penetrating thorns. It seemed 
chiefly thorns; there was prickly-pear, a soft- wooded 
thing which plants your hand full of transparent 
yellow needles and then breaks off bodily; which also 
sheds spiny green slabs upon every foothold which 
must be shifted before proceeding. Then there was 
deciduous gorse, and, worst of the lot, smilax, which is 
of double bramble power, as tenacious as barbed wire, 
a net of fish-hooks! The climber worried through, 
letting himself down from ledge to ledge silently. He 
could see the car. It had plunged into a space be- 
tween two rocks and was a fixture, its after-carriage 
just awash. Where was the body? Then a bough 
snapped and something flicked his ear ; the sharp crack 
came again almost instantly and his hat lifted, settling 
askew upon his head. This time Billy saw the flash. 
Somebody was plugging at him, quite near, through 
thick bush. There are two ways of taking a peppering ; 
in unsettled lands, where the shooting may be with 
intent, you fall flat and creep to cover; in England you 
shout (swear, usually) your loudest to warn the mala- 
droit sportsman of your proximity. Billy, to whom 
intent was unthinkable, took this course. 

“Heh! Hullo, there! Arretez-la! Tenez-dure ! 
What the dickens d’ ye mean, m’sieu? How the 


Still Thicker 


253 


deuce and all can I lend you a hand if you go potting 
at me like this?” The answer was prompt, a quaver- 
ing, nasal snarl. 

“Put your paws up, you swine, and stand just so! 
Now, let me get a look at you. Who are you, anyway, 
and what do you want?” 

Billy, who had not put his hands up, chilled to a 
freezing politeness. “Beg pardon, I ’m sure. Sorry to 
disturb you. I was merely looking in to see how you 
were getting on, you know, but as you seem pretty fit 
I think, I ’ll be moving. I wish you a good-day.” He 
turned and began to re-ascend. The man was well 
concealed; Billy caught not a glimpse of him. 

“Hi, don’t move. You are n’t Irish?” Billy boiled 
over. 

“Do I look like an Irishman?” offering a perfect 
mark. “But what has that to do with it? Is there 
no close- time for Irishmen in your infernal States, sir?” 

For answer came a yell of laughter, ending in sobs. 
The man was hysterical . N ext moment he w as laugh- 
ing again. “He! he! ‘Close-time.’ My land! 
there ’s been none for me this three years ! Wall, you 
are not a Molly, anyway. As for what you look like, 
I will be canned if I know. Ask your glass presently. 
But your talk is white enough for me. Sorry I got 
gunning. I allow I'ma bit jumpy. So might you be 
if you ’d pitched fifty feet into a pin-factory! I ’m 
sorry — vurry sorry ! I don’t know what I said, I take 
it all back! — ev- vurry word! I apologise. Now!” 
He wept again, long gasping sobs. 

Billy cooled. “Oh, that’s all right. How can I 
help you?” 

The gunner showed from behind a mass of thorns. 
He was heavily scratched and in a bad place, helpless, 


254 


Who Laughs Last 

and badly rattled ; a lucky thing for his visitor, as he 
hastened to explain, otherwise he could not have 
missed him twice blindfolded. Billy took his word 
for it without comment. 

Though not forty the man was helplessly unathletic. 
“Snakes! Haow in thunder did you get down here? 
Do you reckon you can boost me up without help? 
I would ruther you did, for the b — y tough that put 
me here fancies it is a knock-out, and he won’t fancy 
that long if you raise the town. See? ” 

“Think we can do it,” said Billy. “But you can 
give the other fellow a rest. He could not have 
intended. . . . Fact is, he is dead, he and his 
chauffeur.” 

“Dead? What killed him? Did the gun bust? 
Chauffeur? What blame folly are you talking? The 
skunk covered me from the top of a rock as I rounded 
the curve. I should have held her right on, but it put 
me off my stroke, and I must have got fooling with the 
wheel just as he let rip. I felt the wind of his bullet, 
but by that time the thing was done, she could n’t 
right herself. We were derailed, sir, and came down 
here, a pretty steep grade to look at it. . . . Ooooh! 
I shall never manage this!” He clung to Billy spas- 
modically, shaken by the strong rigors of terror, his 
features working, a pitiable object. 

“Look here, we don’t seem to be making much 
progress,” remonstrated the Englishman; “I can’t lift 
a foot if you hang to me like this. Let me go and I ’ll 
fetch ” 

“Be damned if you shall!” squealed the American, 
adhering to his man like a leech, then dropping into a 
hoarse whisper, as if dreading eavesdroppers; “that 
would give them the trick. Can’t you understand 


Still Thicker 


255 


that I don’t want to send in my checks this journey? 
Well, I don’t. You ’d like to know who I am. I am 
Schlinck, of the Great Southern Trans-Continental, 
and the Pork Trust, and one or two other little things. 
See? Xerxes Y. Schlinck. (I ’ve a cyard somewhere 
if it has n’t — ) But I don’t brand my name on my 
trunks, you understand. There are n’t five men in 
France know it. My own chauffeur don’t.” 

Billy nodded, repressing an expression of doubt. He 
had never heard of Schlinck, or of the Pork Trust, but 
accepted both for what they might imply of vague, ill- 
gotten affluence. The man, having wiped a beaded 
forehead, got his breath and went on: 

“You don’t know me, never heard of me? — that ’s 
vurry strange. Where were you raised, I wonder? 
Why, sir, I am worth anything you choose to suggest. 
There are not a dozen citizens in the U-nited States 
(and none in Eu-rope) who could put up a fight with 
me. You are a poor man, but you are a Britisher — 
yes ? Wall, I reckon I can trust you, yes ? What I am 
getting at is this — land me on the stoop of the Belvi- 
dere well and whole and I make a man of you — see?” 

Billy stiffened with vivid disgust ; the other misun- 
derstood the expression. 

“You want something defin-ite, in writing? (I 
should myself), but it is difficult down here, yet I 
might — ” Still holding the boy with his left hand, he 
began to search his own pockets, unearthing stylo and 
cheque-book. “ See naow, it is a deal, sir. I sign one 
fur ten thousand here, on London (sterling, as you call 
it, not dollars, mind !) and give you another for double 
as much in the bureau of my hotel. But you don’t 
leave me meantime. No, sir! Is that so? Shake on 
it!” 


256 


Who Laughs Last 

“Certainly not. We don’t do it that way. But 
you would n’t understand. . . . Put up those things, 
pull yourself together, and let my elbow alone. I ’ll 
rope you, I think.” 

He got free at last, for the man had talked himself 
back into some degree of composure; his eye was 
steadier, his chin had ceased to quiver, he began to 
take notice, as mothers say. 

“Hello! — chipped your ear? It is bleeding some 
all daown your collar inside.” (Billy had not known 
it, now he felt the sting beginning.) “I wasn’t so 
off-colour as I fancied. Though I could n’t have 
missed a mark like that altogether.” The discovery 
seemed restorative to self-respect. He lifted his arms 
and allowed his guide to encircle him with the long red 
sash which he was wearing au Provencal. “ Now, put 
your right hand there, and hold on whilst I get above 
you, see? ” The re-ascent began. 

If Billy Winterbourne were a raconteur, which he is 
not, nor ever will be, he could pitch a good story of 
that climb. On Wall Street “Xerxes Y.’s” nickel- 
steel nerve is a tradition ; his inscrutable smile and the 
brazen-cheeked aplomb with which he has backed- 
down more than one well-engineered raid upon the 
Schlinck Stocks are the dearest memories of his satel- 
lite brokers. But this was not Wall Street, nor upon 
such an alien dunghill as a thorn-infested precipice, 
with the water just whispering for him, could this 
normally gallant rooster raise the ghost of a crow. 
Now butting behind, now hauling in front, now fitting 
patent-leather-shod feet of the tenderest into tight 
crevices and anon extracting them, or placing gloved 
fingers where they should have held on, but from 
which they persistently slipped, and all to a running 


Still Thicker 


257 


accompaniment of distressing profanities, Billy played 
a great innings. There was will-power and muscle to 
be found for two. Twice his passenger collapsed, 
clung to him, sweating, cursing, and weeping. When a 
sable-lined motor-coat, worth two thousand dollars if 
a cent, had been left behind, progress improved, but 
the last six feet towards safety were an almost dead 
pull; the Schlinck hands, unaccustomed to this form 
of industry, had finally given out. 

Upon the level the man came again at once. A fish- 
like gasp, a haggard glance to left and to right 
reassured him. No gun covered him ; not a soul was in 
sight; he grinned and would be damned if the little 
Britisher was not a daisy-boy! or himself a white 
man, either, sir! Out came that stylo again, the 
cheque-book was following, but Billy’s dissent was too 
emphatic for actual penmanship. He was far from 
reciprocating his companion’s warmly-expressed ad- 
miration, and would accept nothing from him. The 
American was piqued by a novel experience. 

“But, why? — I owe it you. I mighty near got you 
with that second barr’l, and instead of hazing me, or 
holding me up, sir, you — you — played the joker! Why, 
sir, the dollars are nothing to me. You don’t think 
I put my life at a pahltry figure like that, surely? Do 
just allow me ! Consider it an honorarium.” 

There are things too inappropriate for explanation ; 
if the offender can’t see it, you must leave it. Hot 
words at a wedding; drink in a cathedral; dollars in 
the presence of death. 

“Oh, stop it! If you want to be doing something, 
lend a hand here.” “Here” were the corpses. No 
one had passed. The petrol had soaked in; the blood 
had dried, flies had begun to circle. 

17 


258 Who Laughs Last 

“Not pretty,” said the American, standing back 
after perfunctory inspection ; “that car held the middle 
of the track; I had all my work to pass, and then the 
fools hunted me mighty close. Seems to me that 
when I saw the gun and propped, these here went wide 
and fouled the rock. Know the old man? One could 
put a name to a head like that if — You had better 
empty his pockets. Then I will. There is no sense 
in leaving indentificatory fixings for the first tramp 
that gets in before the sergent-de-ville arrives.” The 
man spoke sense. 

“Now,” said Schlinck, “let's get a move on us. 
This is no place for me. It is a murracle that no one 
has been along. I can’t get the hang of things. Did 
you see anybody? — after the smash — I mean? ” 

“There was a fellow passing just as they died; a 
roughish lot,” said Billy. 

“You don’t say? — a native? Not an Irishman, 
sure? And you spoke him?” 

“I could not have uttered a word at the moment — 
too bowled over. He said something or other, I forget 
what. Oh, that it was the wrong man, and that there 
should n’t have been a chauffeur, or some such piffle. 
Yes, he had a pistol of a sort. I had been watching 
him from the hill above; I thought him a shore-gunner, 
some fellow attached to one of the garages in St. Lopez 
who had the right of chasse on this bit of country in his 
off -time, you know. He just looked at the wreck and 
swore, and cleared off.” 

The American had listened intently ; two facts 
seemed material. 

“Left, did he? and pretty slick? Then we may 
make the Belvidere alive after all. I was a bit shy of 
starting with that durned Molly lying low for me along 


Still Thicker 


259 


the road. Thinks he has downed the wrong man, 
does he? That ’s to the good. But how in Hades 
could he have missed seeing me go over? I sense when 
the galoot fired he dropped flat and missed the show. 
I took the chute while the skunk’s eye was off me, and 
when he raised his chin this car had rounded the angle 
and was in trouble, and, both being yellow carriages, 
he saw no difference. You did not speak him? He 
took you for a native. One word of English, sir, and 
he ’d have blown the back out of your head for sure! 
You are a fortunate man, sir, and I ’ll be obliged by 
your accompanying me to my hotel. I shall feel safe 
in your company, sir. I do not think this is the day 
starred for you, sir; and I shall hope to share your 
immunity — Sakes! What was that?” 

A report had sounded from somewhere in the middle 
distance. Dropping the card-case he had just taken 
from the body, Schlinck sprang for cover, and from 
an overhung niche of the scarped roadside silently 
beckoned his companion to join him. 

“ Mule-carter whip-cracking; they are always at it,” 
said Winterbourne, recovering the fallen case. 

‘ * Think so ? Great Scott ! It sounded like a gun ! ’ ’ 

“Too sharp,” replied Billy, thinking of a smooth- 
bore, and unfamiliar with the American language. 
“ Well, come along ” — a last puzzled look at the dead — 
“I have met that poor chap somewhere. ... If 
the face were less knocked about. . . . We can 
do no more here.” 

But there was no mule-cart, and Schlinck, holding 
his weapon ready for instant use, skirmished from 
point to point with apprehensions, which under the 
circumstances were not excessive. They met nobody, 
they passed but one, a woman, wholly in white, closely 


26 o 


Who Laughs Last 

veiled, standing beneath a palm tree at cross roads. 
Within sight of the plage, its pepper trees and euca- 
lyptus, a gendarme-d-cheval met them, the harassed 
American brightened. “Gee! this is better! Not a 
word, sir, as to the gunning, if you please. Allow me ! 
Hi! monsieur!” He told of the accident and the 
bodies, and the wrecked car, saying nothing of his own 
or of his adventures. The man exclaimed, saluted, 
and clattered off at a trot. “The other business I 
prefer to conduct on my own, sir. Say I told that 
person just what had happened, and described my 
sniper, before the authorities had made up their minds 
that I was not a victim of hallucinations the tough 
would have skipped into Italy, and back to Pah-ree 
through Switzerland — see? And meanwhile I — and 
you, sir — would be tied up here awaiting a trial which 
would not eventuate, de-pending upon an arrest which 
would not be effected, and affording marks for a fresh 
agent of the Society which has its down on me. No, 
sir! I ’ll fight my own battle and win yet. That 
Pittsburg rattler is n’t as handy with his iron as I had 
thought him. Next time I shall get the drop on him 
first, and then. . . . What gets me is their system 
of shadowing. I left this garage an hour and a half 
back, I drove myself, I told nobody my destination.” 

“But,” interposed Billy, following a clue and 
regardless whose toes it led him over, “you were 
loaded down with flowers. I saw you.” 

“ You did? Well, what of it? ” asked the other with 
slow, gruff suspicion, not seeing that clue, nor approv- 
ing of such intimate knowledge of his movements. 

“And you told a man at starting to expect you in an 
hour. I heard him say so to a tall Irishman, the same 
who got fiddling with your tires on the Channel boat.” 


Still Thicker 


261 


“Heh — what? Boat? Were you there? Not the 
dude I — ? You were n’t in these French-built pants 
then, and had no beard.” 

44 1 had not. But the man you handled had a mole 
on his cheek. I spotted him again to-day. Whilst 
you were down the cliff he came along. He had a 
pistol with jointed stock.” 

Schlinck’s temper cooled instantly; this was the 
heart of the plot ; he could be prompt upon occasion — 
he was deliberate now. 

44 Ex-cuse me, sir, not another word here. You 
shall repeat that to me in my rooms right away.” 

The doors closed, the porti&re shaken out, chairs 
drawn. 44 Now, sir, let me have that once more from 
the beginning. ’ ’ He had it. 

4 4 Of course my chauffeur would guess my road; he 
has driven me to the house with flowers before. I ’m 
a fool sometimes like other men. But Auguste has no 
English — he ’s Austrian. I engaged him in Pah-ree 
when my chauffeur fell sick; highest references.” 

4 4 Has he hurt his hand ? ’ ’ 

44 Why, yes; burnt it. That ’s why I was driving. 
What made you ask?” 

44 A black sling, which he was n’t using. That hand 
is a blind ; so is his name, and his ignorance of English, 
which he speaks as well as yourself; I heard him. I 
was as close as I am to you.” 

Schlinck sucked in his lips; his dark, beady eyes 
glittered. 44 The fools took you for a native, as I did! 
Now then, wait ! Don’t speak ! ’ ’ 

The mouth hardened to a firm straight line, the 
brain worked arduously for a minute, then the tension 
relaxed, the thinker drew easier breath, his eyes 


26 2 


Who Laughs Last 

snapped, he looked his companion over with a curious 
one-sided smile. 

“It pans out. If he could have cut my tires on 
board I must have stopped at Cally, where there were 
chances to knife or shoot, and for him to re-cross by 
the next boat. See? It did n’t require a Solomon to 
see so much, so I pushed on for Pah-ree by road, and 
should have thrown him out, but my chauffeur fell 
sick there. The Society must have planted one of 
themselves on me — Auguste (or whatever the man’s 
real name is) with faked credentials. His part has 
been to keep the other informed of my movements. I 
came here by Pau and Toulouse, which, under the 
circs., sir, was a vain precaution. The other was here 
before me, lying low for a shot. Wonder why Auguste 
has n’t done the trick himself ! Had fifty chances. 
Not a nerve for it, perhaps. The Society works on the 
lines of specialisation of labour. I do myself.” 

He smiled again more one-sidedly still. 

“There are several ways in which a man might take 
this. Auguste don’t know yet that I ’ve the inner 
track. He need never know. He might go out this 
vurry afternoon whilst I was cleaning my Browning. 
Or I could drill him while down that cliff looking for 
my motor-coat. Nobody can taste morphia in a 
bitter, and I don’t know but that is n’t the cleanest 
way out. You are surprised, sir, but tell me, naow, 
what sort of show have these toughs given me? Whilst 
as for gendarmes and sergents-de-ville, that crowd 
is n’t worth a dime the cord. But you are ! Strikes 
me, sir, you have been saving my life all the time since 
I got out of my bath. See here, I want you. I ’ll — ” 
he leaned across the table, his hand out. 

“ Impossible,” interposed Billy, rising, but the other 


Still Thicker 


263 


got first to the door. “Wait! — I know your British 
prejudices; I ’ll shake Auguste, he and his brother 
tough may go to Sheol in their own time. I ’ve a 
yacht at Cannes; join me in a cruise in the Levant. 
Don’t say no! I like you. See, I ’ll do more than I 
said.” (Which spoilt all that was not spoilt already.) 

“Oh, but you must! You shall! You don’t know 
me, I have pulls all over creation. I ’ll put you on the 
up-grade; it shall be a joy-ride, sir, for you all the time ! 
Name your sport, sir, just put a name to it, and wade 
in to beat the band! I am a stanch friend, sir; my 
crowd will tell you so on the street, and out West, too. 
Join us! You are a hustler, sir, temporarily side- 
tracked, I ask no questions, I see what I see.” He 
poured it hot, the man had power; with one of his own 
breed he was irresistible. 

“Good afternoon,” said Billy. 

“ But I have not had your name ! ’ ’ 

“Not necessary; we aren’t likely to meet again. 
Good ” 

“Oh, damn it all! — you ’ll dejeuner with me!” 

“Thanks, no, I think not; I have — er — made other 
arrangements. Good afternoon to you ! ” 

“ Well, of all . . . ! ” There was more in the cry than 
the chagrin of a man accustomed to get his own way, 
who finds himself up against a will stronger than his 
own ; it was with genuine distress that Schlinck stood 
aside and allowed the little Britisher to leave the room. 
He overtook him at the stair-head, “What is it? Say? 
There isn’t much Zerk Schlinck can’t knock into 
shape. Let me into it! I mean it, sir! I have met 
your sort before, I am vurry fond of the breed!” 

“ Thanks awfully, but ...” 

“I bind you to nothing! I give you a free hand! 


264 


Who Laughs Last 

I ’ll stand in and watch you having the time of your 
life. If it is fox-hunting my stable at Melton Mow- 
bray is yours for next season ! If it is the turf my stud 
at Newmarket is at your disposal; take it over! I 
have a couple of dark horses running in the Derby, 
both flyers! Is it motoring, or coaching, aeroplan- 
ing or big game, or polo (you shape like a rider), you 
can run your own show with me behind you, only 
don’t. ...” 

But the boy was gone. Xerxes Y. Schlinck returned 
to his rooms; he had ordered champagne of the first 
waiter whom he met after entering the hotel, and had 
drunk half the bottle whilst talking. The little 
Britisher’s glass stood full and flat, the Reserve Inti- 
midad which he had pressed upon him lay untouched 
beside it. The American saw, he understood, he 
swore himself hoarse. There were actual tears in his 
eyes when he stopped. 

“I am a dum idjit, and know it! I took him the 
wrong way, but a man can’t fall fifty feet plumb, fetch 
up in a briar-patch, and feel Holy Sabbath within an 
hour. To tell him I ’d lay out Auguste was Wild- West 
talk. It skeered him. And I want that mahn, he is 
my mahn, worth two of Pinkerton’s, and what ’s 
better, he is lucky. And a mahn one could make a 
friend of; the shekels no object at all! Lord, what 
side! What is that manner? Not college, not law? 
But it is tony, oh, yes, the brand of some society. 
Talks like a dude and dresses like a French hay-seed. 
It gets me. I ’ll wire for a private agent and have him 
shadowed. He shan’t back me down, no! His name 
and history I ’m bound to have, any way. Singular, 
vurry. I don’t reckon to fail with a mahn, but I have 
failed this time. What put him off? Not the shots — 


Still Thicker 


265 


too good a sport to mind them. Did I give myself 
away some at climbing? Guess so. I remember 
blubbing. I have n’t blubbed since we lost to Cornell, 
the whole team wallowed in the mud and did a bitter 
weep. That is it, Britishers despise emotion, I guess. 
I ’ve seen the whipped side at an International lead off 
the cheers for the winners. We Amurricans are too 
nervy. But that impression will rub out when he 
knows me. And he shall know me.” He finished 
the bottle. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


BILLY SCORES 

T HE young Englishman descended the steps of the 
Belvidere with the chin of an offended man. 
He had had the devil of a time. He would have liked, 
had such an effort of will been within the range of 
things possible, to have erased from his memory the 
whole of the last hour. Those broken human shapes, 
muttering their incoherent desires and passing out into 
the Unexplored beneath his eyes, had affected him 
painfully. The boy had a kindly heart and the dispo- 
sition that runs to any cry without waiting to count 
the cost. He had run in vain. As for this other, this 
Schlinck, whom he had saved, if not from death, yet 
from injury and discomfort; the question arose 
whether the man were worth saving? How he had 
snivelled and shuddered and clung! His first words 
upon reaching safety had been, “Sir, you are a white 
man, shake ! ” Billy, taken unawares, had allowed his 
hand to be taken. Never again! There had been 
none of that at parting! An extraordinary person! 
He had descanted upon the price of that cigar: “ None 
like it in Eu-rope, sir! My own brand, one-and-a- 
quarter dollars the smoke.” Billy loathed the fellow. 
“He stinks of dollars ; he thinks in dollars, and believes 
there is nothing dollars will not buy ; he has only to put 
266 


267 


Billy Scores 

up enough of them. I can see him making a bid for 
the Coronation Chair or the Cullinane Diamond. 
Naturally, from his point of view, any little thing a 
fellow does for him is to be paid for — dollars down (or 
dollars on account, in my case, confound him !) Lord, 
what an unholy bounder ! Ey-ah !” he yawned. The 
boy resented being drawn into quarrels. That sort 
got their money nefariously he supposed (the self- 
revelations of the American press, and the American 
novel, must be his excuse) ; no doubt a successful 
organiser of corners and trusts provoked reprisals 
from the-exploited. It looked like it. Billy would 
walk wide of the man and all his works. 

“Eh-ah! but I ’m tired! This sort of thing takes it 
out of a fellow, and I started out to get a nap, but got 
to watching birds. It began with that osprey. . . . 
Whieu! my glasses? Gone!” He stopped and patted 
his pockets abstractedly, tracking the lost Zeiss from 
point to point in his day’s movements. “I had it 
when the cars came into view, and must have left it 
under that juniper when I heard the smash . And 
there it will be still.” 

Not wishing to revisit the scene of the tragedy at 
which the authorities would be busying themselves, he 
took a short cut and reached the spot from behind. 
The high lonely place was precisely as he had left it; 
he turned the corner of the overhung rock and — found 
himself face to face with the Irishman. The man was 
seated upon the ground, supported by the back of the 
shelter, his feet extended, his hands hanging slackly 
at his sides, a pistol by one, the lost binoculars by the 
other. The sheep had walked straight into the lion’s 
den! This explained the loose cartridge; from this 
eyrie the assassin had kept watch upon distant 


268 


Who Laughs Last 

stretches of road, marked his intended victim’s return, 
hurried down to the sugar-loaf rock which commanded 
the track, and thence had fired at Schlinck and missed, 
but with fatal effects to others against whom he had no 
grudge. 

Billy saw it all in a swift red scribble of brain-work. 
He also saw his own predicament. If this ruffian 
wished to kill him he would kill him, there was no 
cover upon such ground, nor could he escape by run- 
ning. He stood awaiting the event, mute, for there 
was nothing to say. The seated villain regarded him 
with dull eyes, nor did his hand move to his weapon. 
It occurred to Billy that he was still mistaken for a 
man of the country ; he would play the part. 

“ ’Giom’, m’sieu! Mes Lorgnettes, la!” he pointed 
to the glasses. 

“Take ’em, pard; I done with ’em — and with the 
rest of it.” The man’s head wagged weakly, despond- 
ently from side to side, regarding in turn his own 
empty hands, and the things which lay beside each. 
Billy perceived that he was ill ; the boy’s eyes, dazzled 
by the brilliant sunlight and the hot ground which he 
had climbed, were growing used to the dark shadow 
beneath the bush. The man was much sallower than 
he had thought him, the face was fallen in, and was of 
an unwholesome waxen yellow; the mouth open, the 
lips blue. He was sitting upon a carpet of juniper- 
needles sodden with blood! As Billy made this dis- 
covery the man grunted. He spoke again, but more 
slowly, almost incoherently, the depleted brain was 
loosening its hold upon things. “Gosh! I ’m dry — 
lime-dry! Ye have no drink on ye? She went off, 
pard, an’ got me here. Caught in the linin’ o’ me 
pockut. A muckin’ job. I doubt I ’m a doner; run- 


269 


Billy Scores 

ning away fast ; no stopping it . I would n ’t mind if I ’d 
got him, but I reckon from what I see that I mistook 
the kyars. Tell Mooney, Mick Freany did n’t. . . 

His chin dropped, his head fell forwards upon his 
chest, its incidence drew the body over; the upper 
frame from the waist fell slowly upon its side and lay. 
Billy, much moved, felt for the heart’s action and 
found none. The man was dead. 

“However many more?” asked the poor youth in 
an awed whisper, and straightened himself and stood 
aside, hearing in the afternoon stillness the liquid note 
of a crested lark above, and below in the road the clink 
of metal where labourers were removing the wrecked 
car; and the Sous-Prdfet was making an inventory of 
articles found upon the bodies. A much-astonished 
man was the Sous-Prefet. That hand-bag, quelle 
joaillerie! quels objets de vertu ! Sapristi! 

Three human beings of different bloods and upbring- 
ings had come from the ends of the earth, met, and 
extinguished one another. By chance? Not wholly. 
Their interactions and collisions had been conditioned 
by ancestors unknown to them by name, themselves 
the resultants of customs, creeds, and codes long since 
passed away, but which have left legacies of cruelty, 
bigotry, and wrong to be paid to their ultimate farth- 
ings. A mediaeval English Lord-Deputy, tired of 
preaching “civil tie” to the cattle-thieves on Suir and 
Shannon (themselves men of immemorial grievances 
against him and his) suspends the Common Law in 
Tipperary, reducing the county by scratch of pen to a 
hunting-ground for the young gentlemen of the Pale, 
wherein the Englishry might chase “big game” at 
their will, unafraid of subsequent action for murther 
and fire-raising, taking their choice of “kine or 


270 


Who Laughs Last 

killing,” as the humours of the moment might dictate. 
Through the mists of centuries we watch Mr. Arthur 
of Arthurstown, Mr. Baldwin of Baldwinstown, with 
Messrs. Bagenal, Anderson, Walter, and Walsh of their 
respective “towns,” summon the troopers of Troopers- 
town and beat the stony glens of the Galtees for wood- 
kernes, as their twentieth-century descendants might 
do for woodcock. 

Need one look for respect for law in the descendants 
of such Irishry as survived? Hence the archaic 
morality of the Freanys is traditional and the outlook 
of each generation fixed antenatally. Mick’s grand- 
father took it out with him to “Mericky” in ’47. 
Three generations of the race have found nothing in 
the social conditions of the Pennsylvania coalfield to 
mitigate their inherited distrust of the law and its 
makers, or to modify their views upon the relations of 
capital and labour. When, weary of dynamiting 
managers and sheriffs, the Inner Circle decided to 
strike at the Head, it recognised in poor Mick Freany 
a suitable instrument. Mick was one of the seven 
who followed Boss Schlinck to Europe. Others were 
brain, feet, and eyes, he was the hand that should 
strike. He struck and lies there. And of Onesimus 
Y. what say we? The Simpkinson of Lollard ancestry 
who, when vicar of Wendover, was burned in Ayles- 
bury market-place by Bonner, left a grandson who was 
cropped by Laud for a ballad against surplices. His 
son we find in buff and steel, captain of a troop under 
Ireton, and later a persecutor of Quakers at Salem, 
Mass. The stock (none nobler upon this earth) has 
run to seed of late, throwing up intolerant visionaries 
and over-cute men of business, convinced that what- 
soever they earnestly sought in prayer was according 


271 


Billy Scores 

to the will of the Almighty. From martyrs we pass to 
mystics, from mystics to cranks-on-the-make , and 
there, in the highway dust of the Corniche, lies the 
last of the line. 

Of poor Gaston Vinot, five feet five, swarthy, bull- 
necked, red-cheeked, black-eyed, fond of his p'tit bleu , 
all that shall be recorded is that he, too, did after his 
kind. A bold chauffeur, he resented being driven off 
the road and made to swallow the dust and primings 
of a mannerless American from the rival hotel. A mo- 
mentary display of temper induces too close pursuit, 
the leader unaccountably swerves, Gaston would pass, 
but is shut in, cannons the leading car off the track 
into the sea, takes the roadside scarp with his mud- 
guard, and is smashed himself. Alas, poor Gaston ! 

These reflections, which will naturally suggest them- 
selves to the intelligent reader, versed, as we should all 
of us be for our own safeties, in the conditions and 
family histories of those who serve us, or with whom 
we associate, never so much as entered the head of 
Billy Winterbourne. 

A gallon of water thrown in one’s face may be start- 
ling or refreshing, at worst it may be endured with 
good temper, but a tithe of the quantity, delivered in 
drops upon the crown of one’s head at irregular inter- 
vals, would have exasperated the Patriarch Job. 
Winterbourne had seen two men die since lunch, and 
had missed but little of having his own brains blown 
out. His nerves were still jangled from recurrent 
shocks, which severe physical exertion and the en- 
forced companionship of an unsympathetic person- 
ality had done nothing to repair. Now, his emotions 
had sustained a renewed assault ; after a momentary 
menace of death he had been forced to watch for the 


272 Who Laughs Last 

third time, unsustained by companionship, the passing 
of a human life. It hit him hard, for beneath the 
stoical mask of his order lay tender susceptibilities. 
The boy went a few steps aside, turned his back upon 
the body, sat him down, and fought his sensations. He 
resented the unfairness of it all. Why should he, with 
urgent and delicate business upon his hands, for coping 
with which he was husbanding his powers, be har- 
rowed and buffeted thus? Selfishness? Not so. His 
strength and capacity were ear-marked for other ends; 
he felt incapable of interesting himself in this latest 
tragedy. A criminal had come by a piteous death 
through mishandling his own weapon. What his duty 
might be from the standpoint of M. le Prefet Billy 
cared not to ask. Under the most favourable circum- 
stances this was bound to have been a hard day, but 
circumstances had not favoured him, his path had 
grown thornier, stonier, and steeper. He was having 
a rotten time of it, a little more and he would be fit for 
nothing at the critical moment; if he should get his 
opening in front of goal he would be too done to shoot. 

He recovered his glasses, averting his eyes from the 
great hairy yellow hand that lay relaxed and open as 
though claiming them in death. Billy, slinking down 
that hillside, looked and felt more dejected and guilty 
than many a criminal. 

“ I must get something into me or I shan’t stick the 
day out.” Again he ate, as do the men of the south, 
at a small table beneath the plane-tree pergola. He 
paid, he laid a heavy head upon an arm, yawned 
deeply, and was asleep before he knew what was com- 
ing. The blessed tides of oblivion flowed through him, 
relaxing overstrained sinews, slackening over-tense 
nerves, soothing, obliterating, rearranging impressions 


273 


Billy Scores 

upon the too closely- written tablets of the brain, and 
presently, whilst the visible man, and his conscious 
self, the only side of him which he recognised, slum- 
bered, that other self, of which we get such rare, fugi- 
tive and partial glimpses, arose and took charge. This 
form of us is not so strictly limited in space as is the 
one with which we are more familiar. Like some rock- 
fast sea-creature which loosens its living net to the 
movements of the tides this ego disperses around the 
sleeping immobile body an aura, how widely extending 
we know not yet, but this is sure that its marginal 
fringes touch and are sensitive to the peripheries of 
other auras, to the spiritual emanations of those in 
whom we are interested, or who take interest in our- 
selves, whose souls thrill to the same key. 

He was tired enough to have slept until dark, had 
dropped off unaware, and had made no compact with 
himself as to waking, but the subconscious self was 
awake and taking thought for the composite personal- 
ity. At the end of an hour the sleeper knew that he 
had slept, and felt the need for awakening. He did 
not however open his eyes, for a procession of pleasant 
imageries, fantastic, bright-hued, irrationally delight- 
ful, a charming kinematograph arranged for him, and 
for him only, was passing behind the dropped lids. 
“ Thirty thousand pounds sterling !” some one was 
saying (not himself). “What would a fellow do with 
it? Rub his independence into old Sam? — make him 
sit up? And upset the pater? I don't think! Buy 
back Kathleen? Yes, sound thing to do, that. Find 
mother, of course!” And lo, he had found her! She 
faced him, sweet and dear, and gracious as ever, and 
went. Then out of nowhere, unsummoned by mem- 
ory or will, a girl-face floated up and stood. It was no 

18 


274 


Who Laughs Last 

composite photograph of multitudinous maidenhood, 
but a definite and most desirable she. Dark chestnut 
hair was heaped above a low forehead, broad and 
white ; there were brown eyebrows set wide of the base 
of a sensitive nose, arching boldly and leaving clear 
space for it to spring; straight it was, and finely 
modelled about the wings of the nostrils. The cheeks 
were too thin and too pale, and the large brown eyes 
were dim and sad ; sad too was the drooping mouth, its 
full lower lip quivered a little, was caught in but 
escaped again, and still quivered and drooped. The 
day-dream had fallen silent, none spoke now. The 
sleeper had a desire to offer help, to comfort, to reas- 
sure. What was the trouble? Who was she? Surely 
he had seen that face somewhen, somewhere in the 
pleasant places of happier days. Then sleep slipped 
from him as its sheet slips from a monument at its 
inauguration. He lifted his face, he opened his eyes, 
and there, ten yards away, was the face of his waking 
dream ! 

The Place Magenta is roofed in from the suns of the 
Midi by pleached planes, around the scarred boles of 
which are fixed benches. Upon the one nearest to 
Billy’s table a lady was in the act of seating herself. 
She moved slowly, being tired. The April afternoon 
sun was still hot, and the roads gritty. A little foot 
in a worn indoor shoe peeped from beneath the frayed 
hem of a skirt of staring tartan, a garish arrangement 
of such hues as never Scotia saw, but which delight the 
debased colour-sense of modem Italy. The upper 
garment, which American girls call a shirt-waist, and 
their English cousins a blouse, had once been white, 
it was now grubby, there is no other word for it; 
the toque was too big. But the girl these garments 


275 


Billy Scores 

clothed was adorable. Poor Billy could hardly think 
himself awake. Yet she was there, and was she — 
herself! Shabby, poor, and in trouble. 

Too recently arisen from the wells of sleep to be 
quite conscious of what he was doing, or how what he 
did must strike another, the boy stared frankly. The 
lady had sunk back in her seat, enjoying the support of 
the trunk behind her, the coolness of the shaded square 
after the dazzle outside, the comfort of rested feet, the 
ease after prolonged movement. She was uncon- 
scious of his presence. Then her eyes rose and met 
his — full. Billy’s hat came off ; he leaped to his feet. 

“Miss . . . {there !) — Pardon my wretched memory. 
We met out with the Brake, you know. Mrs. Bohun 
introduced us. And at Calais, a month ago, you 
know. May I? Can I?” 

The lady’s fine eyes had rounded when he arose and 
moved toward her. Her colour mounted at his first 
words. What she saw was a roughly-dressed French 
peasant who had been sleeping off his drink, head upon 
arm; the rude fellow had lifted dazed, doubtfully sober 
eyes, had stared, had swept her a ridiculous bow with 
a rough hat, had got to his feet, upsetting his chair, 
and addressed her — in English ! He was bearded and 
dirty, his ear and collar caked with dried blood, his 
hands scratched to an extraordinary degree, but the 
voice and the eyes made her pause when she had 
arisen, and held her feet which would have carried 
her away. 

The crucial word was Bohun. 

“Sir, I don’t think I know you,” she began, and 
whilst her lips framed the words she knew that know- 
ledge had come. “You cannot surely be Mr. Winter 
. . . borough? Did we meet at the buffet?” 


276 


Who Laughs Last 

“Yes, yes! Of course we did. So that ’s all right! 
And we may talk. You are Miss . . . ? — now, what 
did Mrs. Bohun say? — ) Wentworth, of course! Thanks, 
I remember.” (He did n’t.) “ Now, please, what can 

I do for you? Do say ! Do let me ! ” 

The lady coloured with pleasure, laughing a choky 
little laugh which she controlled with difficulty. It 
was so sudden. She had passed through so much, and 
had seemed at her last, and now this jolly English boy 
had turned up and things were possible after all. 

“You are very good. If I may say what I really 
should like, it is something to eat.” 

She smiled again, happily this time, if a little wist- 
fully, but it was good honest hunger no less. Billy 
warmed . “You missed your lunch ? You are ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Awfully ! N othing to-day ; positively ! ’ * 

“Good Lord! Not another word! Can you eat out 
here? It is the way of the country, and really more 
respectable than inside.” 

“Oh, I know. Yes, anything! You don’t 
know !” 

“Don’t I? Hi! Gorgon!" 

The sale of his kit had made Billy independent of 
his remittance for a while, and this capital sum his 
economical habits had not seriously depleted. When 
he had started upon this expedition he had taken the 
whole of his reserve with him ; he knew not what calls 
upon it the day might make. Here was the first. 
Thank Heaven! he could do the lady well. Poor 
thing! Nothing to-day ? And dressed like this? She 
must have lost her people. Wentworth ? What Went- 
worths would they be? Not — ? But, one thing at a 
time, and food first. These questions buzzed in his 
head whilst he hurried in and out, getting a move upon 


277 


Billy Scores 

that fool of a cook, as he phrased it. Being the slack- 
est time of the day, neither early nor late, dejeuner 
past and diner not in sight, the range was almost cold, 
and nothing ready. Potage-au-chou in a basin, with 
floating crusts screening mysterious depths, came first. 
It was greasy, it was hot, it smelt of garlic, but Miss 
Wentworth finished its last spoonful. The fish was 
just a Falmouth pilchard from the pickle- tub, it 
went the way of the soup. He lifted the glass demi- 
litre of rouge interrogatively. 

“No wine, please. I ’ve not touched it for so long. 
A cafi-au-lait at once, and a noir later, if I may. Oh, 
this is good, good!” 

“Don’t hurry, there’s loads of time, and nobody 
coming.’’ 

The lady twisted her coarse serviette between 
nervous hands. “Nobody for you. How about me? 
But their train isn’t due before six-thirty.” Their 
eyes met. Hers were haggard, premonitory, but with 
new-born courage at the back of them. 

“Not yet, Miss Wentworth, keep pegging away. 
When you are quite through you shall tell me as much 
as you like, and we will arrange our plan of campaign. 
Here comes the volaille-au-cresson. I ’m always 
a little suspicious of their water-cress here, chuck 
it out.” 

The noir was a success. The lady set down an 
empty cup and lifted grateful eyes. Billy settled the 
bill, surprising the garqon with a two-franc piece. 

“Ought we to be moving? Remember my time is 
yours.” 

“ And I have done enough walking for these.” She 
exhibited the broken toe of a slipper. “We can talk 
here as well as anywhere, or on one of those seats.” 


278 


Who Laughs Last 

They removed to a tree. “I owe you an explana- 
tion,” said Billy. 

“And I owe you another, so we are quits,” laughing 
quietly. “You seem to be in the wood; I am in the 
wood; we are in the wood; quite a French exercise. 
Or is it the Babes in the Wood?” She smiled again, 
adorably. 

“Before I begin may I ask if you are any connection 
of the Welbury Winterbournes?” 

“Rather ! — I ’m one of ’em. I have no cards about 
me, but I assure you my father and elder brother are 
in the bank. Mordaunt, Wentworth & Winterbourne 
is the full style, I believe, but it usually goes as Winter- 
bournes nowadays. By-the-bye, you are not by any 
chance related to the Wentworth — Mr. Cornwallis 
Wentworth, I mean, my people’s partner in the 
Concern?” 

“Oh, but I am! — his daughter — I am Millicent 
Wentworth, ‘but’ — no, you didn’t say the word, it 
popped out of your eyes though, yes — what am I doing 
in these horrid things? — and out in the street without 
one sou upon me, sir? Ask me that ! ” 

“Look here, Miss Wentworth, if it comes to asking 
questions you may begin. What am I, Wilbraham de 
Savigny-Conyers Winterbourne, doing down here? 
When I was introduced to you I expect Mrs. Bohun 
told you I was in the East Wessex. So I was. I am 
out of that. My people are reckoned well off, I sup- 
pose, but I am . . . like this!” he concluded some- 
what lamely, not desiring the lady to suppose an 
indigence as utter as her own, or that his hospitality 
had trenched unduly upon his resources. He began 
again hurriedly. “ I had better tell you the worst — it 
is not very bad — and then you can trust me or not as 


279 


Billy Scores 

you see fit. I sent in my papers. (Family row, not 
regimental, you understand.) I am down here, Cal- 
louris — little place twenty miles inland — on allow- 
ance. Yes, a Remittance Man, if you know the 
term. Sounds bad, I own. Will you take my word 
for it that I have done nothing shady?” 

“Indeed I will! Oh, Mr. Winterbourne, I am so 
sorry!” 

“Thanks, that is kind of you. I believe it will all 
come right some day, but for the present I confess I 
don't see which day. For the moment I am on the 
rocks. But that is not the question. The thing is, 
Will you trust me? May I be allowed to help you, 
Miss Wentworth?” 

“Yes! Yes!” There was no hinted reserve. For 
the second time the boy felt that here was a woman 
whose necessity drove her to lengths which made her 
confidence unflattering. “But you are going too fast. 
You have not heard my account of myself yet. My 
people are supposed to be, well, not exactly paupers. 
Dear papa,” her voice shook, she swallowed tears 
piteously, but recovered and proceeded, “he is a part- 
ner in your — our bank, as you know. Yet here am 
I, in the clothes of a servant, borrowed for the occasion 
without leave (oh, horrid! don’t look at me, please!). 
It is like this. Oh, where shall I begin? ” 

“Go steady, Miss Wentworth, lots of time, you 
know.” 

“Thanks ! I ’ll try, but after a month in the house, 
and all that I ’ve had to put up with.” She shook her 
head, clenched her small ungloved hands, and rallied 
her self-control ; there was pluck in this girl. She began 
her story. “Now then ! I was telegraphed for from the 
Cowdrays-— Mrs. Bohun’s, you know. The message 


2 So Who Laughs Last 

implied that papa was ill. I started at once, with- 
out a maid or any escort (but you saw me at Calais) . 
I reached here, was met by Mrs. Wentworth, my step- 
mother ( a person I detest, and left home upon a round 
of visits to avoid). I was driven to a small, dark, old 
house in a walled garden, and have never seen my 
father once, nor been allowed out of the place since I 
entered it, until this morning, when I ran away.” 

“But that must be illegal, even abroad,” said Billy 
who had vague ideas as to the powers of a Conseille de 
famille in French law. “ If any one had told me this 
yesterday I should have said it simply is n’t done, but 
to-day, curiously ” 

“ It is done ! Look at me. They tell me fairy-tales 
about poor papa’s gambling habits (a thing he detests) 
and his continued absence at Monte Carlo, a place I 
don’t believe he ever set foot in. I ’m inclined to 
believe he is in some nursing home, do you know. 
They want me to sign things which I don’t understand, 
legal things, dated forward a month. (Perhaps I 
ought to tell you I come into some money on Thursday 
week; I shall be twenty-one then.) I have declined to 
put my hand to anything without papa’s authority in 
writing, and what do they do but bring me letters not 
in his hand, dictated by him, they assure me, but how 
can I tell? and signed with his initials, which they 
explain by saying he is down with gout ; but he is not 
subject to gout. I believe it is all lies and lies! I 
hate and detest them! Who is the ‘they’? Oh, 
there is some man about the place whom I have never 
seen, but whom I hear in conversation with Mrs. 
Wentworth. An Englishman, yes. He and she go 
off for all-day excursions by rail, for I hear the train 
agreed upon, and where they shall meet one another. 


28 1 


Billy Scores 

They usually come back to dine. To-day they left 
early, and the cook, Nicoletta, got at the drink; she is 
that way at times when they are out, and I saw my 
opportunity and slipped off. Oh, I should have said 
they have stolen all my frocks, so I made free with one 
of the cook’s, an awful thing, and this blouse — filthy ! 
Mrs. Wentworth’s room was locked, I tried for hers. 
I asked for the English Consul ; would you believe it, 
he died yesterday! I found which hotel the English 
chaplain puts up at, but the season is supposed to be 
over, the church is closed, and he has left for Aigle. 
W as ever such luck ? I could get nothing to eat before 
starting, for Nicoletta locks herself into her depart- 
ment when she intends making a day of it. I could hear 
her snoring. Oh, yes, I tried for an English doctor; 
there is n’t one nearer than Cannes, nor a Pharmacie 
Anglaise, nor a Cook’s Office ! Not a single name upon 
the books of the Belvidere, or Les Palmiers, or Hotel 
Bristol whom I had ever heard of. So, as I had some 
hopes of having got a telegram through to-day to my 
trustee, I thought I would go back and wait events, 
but the garden door is locked on the inside, and I can- 
not climb the wall! Oh, don’t look at me, I must 
laugh, or I shall break down.” 

“Don’t do that, Miss Wentworth. Was that 
telegram you spoke of for some one in Southampton 
Row?” 

“Yes, for a Mr. Masson. What made you ?” 

‘ 1 And you sent it by my friend Vic Palgrave ! ’ ’ The 
lady cried “Oh!” but Billy, hot upon the scent, ran 
breast-high, not to be lifted. ‘ ‘ Masson may not get it, 
for I telegraphed him yesterday, and he may likely 
enough have started. But you shall see him by to- 
morrow, or the day after at latest. I ’ll bring him. 


282 


Who Laughs Last 

So that ’s all right. What Masson can’t do does n’t 
amount to much, I fancy. So one of us is going to 
get out of the wood soon.” 

“Oh, Mr. Winterbourne, what an extraordinary 
coincidence! To think of my running against you, of 
all men, and that you should know all this ! ” 

“Simple as anything; I was sitting with Vic Pal- 
grave at that table at eight o’clock this morning, and 
got it all from him. Not the names, you know; he 
did not breathe the words ‘Masson’ or ‘Wentworth,* 
for he does n’t know me in the matter, or that your 
trustee happens to be mine too, but he told me a few of 
his troubles, and as his and yours seem to be the same 
set of troubles I naturally recognised them, and you. 
See? The thing now is what to do with you until you 
can find Mr. Wentworth, or until Masson can get here 
and claim you. What about Mrs. Bohun? ” 

“Oh, I wrote to her weeks ago; of course I cannot 
say if she ever got my letter. I gave Nicoletta a 
bracelet to post it. I had to break the thing to get it 
off. It was one that I had worn for years, a fixture. 
They had made away with everything else I possessed, 
watch, purse, and jewels, on the night of my arrival.” 

“Rather high-handed, eh? What address did you 
give Mrs. Bohun?” 

“St. Lopez only, and said the house would not be 
more than a mile and a half from the station. You 
see I did not know the name of the villa, nor the road 
it stands in (nothing but a nasty back lane). If she 
got the letter she would come as soon as she could get 
away, but even so it might be difficult to find the 
house; you see I don’t even know under what name 
Mrs. Wentworth is passing. Does that sound 
uncharitable? Am I going too far? You don’t know 


283 


Billy Scores 

her. I did not until this awful month. Oh!” she 
shuddered. ‘‘The place is Casa Bolivar. Not that 
I want to go back there if I could get some one who 
knows papa to take me in.” 

Billy saw his way. “That covered fiacre will do. 
Cocker! Now, Miss Wentworth, I am going to test 
your confidence. We will drive to Le Tertre, and if, 
as may be likely, we are too early, we will keep this 
thing to sit in. Mrs. Bohun is expected back to tea 
in half an hour. Do you think she will stand me a 
cup?” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE RAIDING OF CASA BOLIVAR 
S April suns begin to bite the pedestrian between 



the shoulder-blades and the first glories of the 
southern spring wither, and white umbrellas appear, 
the hotels along the Cdte d'Azur close one after another 
for the season. The few English who stay on must 
move into villas and live the life of the native, shutting 
the place up for the hot hours. The service at Le 
Tertre was getting slack, each of the people had his or 
her plans ; the chef would take up his annually-renewed 
duties at Bex. Boots was for Lugano, and the portier 
and women for different thermals, hotels, and pensions 
on the northern shore of Lac Leman. 

The house had been thinking of closing, when its 
season, almost at its last kick, was revived by the 
coming of two English ladies of the first. There was 
no doubt about it; their dress, requirements, and 
language guaranteed their status. The best front 
rooms upon the seconde were re-opened for them. 
They wished to be quiet. They had said so when 
taking the suite, but the views of these ladies as to 
what constituted repose were of the strangest. The 
establishment amused itself with them ; their frequent 
interviews with the chefs of the gare, and the police, 
their telegrams from Paris, the official character of 


284 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 285 

their correspondence, and the freedom of their man- 
ners, mon dieul Here was ton for you ; they were chic, 
more especially the Madame Ooin-tah-brun. del I 
what a person, what a voice, what movement, vivacity, 
energy for you! also, what Strennes and pourboiresl 
Madame was un pen exigeante , without doubt, but had 
the good heart, and, in a word, was one whom it was 
a pleasure to serve. Nor was Madame Bohun less 
agreeable. 

But for the leavings of the dying season, the habi- 
tudes of the private hotel, those gentle spinsters domi- 
ciled upon the troisibme, the presence beneath them 
of a pair of bouncing, full-blooded British matrons 
(widows, or grass widows, who knew?), with their 
swinging skirts and resonant voices and foot-falls, was 
not an unmixed joy. 

What was the use of asking “Who they were,” or 
hinting at “What they were,” when all the time 
the persons in question were taking themselves for 
granted? The newcomers passed their English house- 
mates upon the stair without the inflection of an eyelid 
or the diminution by a semi-tone. Their laughter 
rang out clear and heart-whole at all hours. The men, 
chiefly officials, who called, treated them with pro- 
found respect. Their clothes and the way they wore 
them, the air with which Mrs. Winterbourne gloved 
a hand, or the massive grace of Mrs. Bohun stooping 
to take up a shoe-lace, to some extent reassured critics 
to whom in other respects the newcomers afforded 
examples of how not to conduct oneself. For although 
they could move like queens upon occasion, they could 
also romp like housemaids whose mistress is at the sea. 
Nor were these exhibitions determined by the presence 
or absence of fellow-guests, whom, as a matter of fact, 


286 


Who Laughs Last 

they unaffectedly ignored. It was the whim of the 
moment, petulance, or high spirits which ruled the 
hour. Fitful, too, liberating swift flames, as swiftly 
jealous, but affectionate, covetous of the last word, 
yet, even in anger, respecting les convenances , and if 
willing to wound, content that the wounds should be 
skin-deep, and repressing unpardonable terms; spar- 
ring, yet withholding the knock-out blow. To listen 
to them was a lesson in the English spoken by the best 
people; they gave to each word its right accent and 
value, accompanied by the facial play and gesture 
approved by Society. Grandes dames de par le monde , 
these, who could still in the privacy of the boudoir 
loosen tongues as elusively allusive as those of any 
women in the world. 

Underneath quantities of expensive clothes and 
much false hair here were essential women, differing 
little from peasants in the emotional strength of 
mutual affections, interrupted by silly quarrels as 
often ending in “a moist relent ement,” upon terms 
of old associations, common experiences, friendships, 
tastes, and prejudices. 

Whether bickering with open windows, or closeted 
with M. le Maire, their vagaries afforded inexhaustible 
food for speculation, and reprobation, to country- 
women of twice their age and half their knowledge 
of life. 

“Ad&la, you are too awful! (Oui, the complet, 
tout-de-suite. Depechez-vous, s’il vous plait.” The 
maid left.) “I am dying for it! Collapsed! You 
wretch! You have taken my breath away before 
to-day, but this beats . . . !” 

“ Not a bit of it ! I ’m back in my old form. ‘ Rich- 
ard ’s herself again ! ’ Play something, play!” Mrs. 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 287 

Winterbourne pirouetted around the room in a pas 
seul, carrying her height and mass as lightly as if four- 
and-forty were lissom fourteen. 

“She will have you arrested for assault and ” 

“Let her try! It would be vieux jeu for me. I ’d 
glory in it! Show her up! But I know better, 
Marion; they are my own stones, every one of ’em, 
and she knows it now if she did n’t before, and has no 
more title to the things than your maid ! Given to 
her by him ? And we housemates, she and I ! at the 
time? Likely, isn’t it? How is she to prove her 
tale? With the man gone — bolted! That gives her 
away! . . . Who is she? Don’t you know? The 
Conradson girl, his latest catch. Her father owned 
that shop in Oxford Street. An undersized, sandy- 
haired ” 

“I saw her, you frightened the life out of her, 
bullied ” 

“Stuff, it was conscience.” 

1 1 It sounded like slaps. Y ou alarmed the chauffeur. 
Could n’t you have employed moral suasion? ” 

“With her? No. A woman of the people must be 
taught her place, my dear. Besides, I was pressed for 
time. I detected an assignation. He might have 
arrived at any moment, and then! Conceive!” 

“You would have been helpless.” 

“I would have gone for him. But she would 
have run, and I should have lost these. No, Marion 
dear, sorry to have upset you, but your Ad&la 
played the game. In a case like this no use to mince 
matters!” 

“You certainly did not make that mistake. It 
looked and sounded as if you were mincing Miss Con- 
radson ; shaking, shouting — she screaming, you getting 


288 Who Laughs Last 

the rings off her hands, and the parure off her. Oh, 
shall I ever forget it?” 

“Why try? It is the right practice with that sort. 
I ’ve not been a militant for nothing. I banged some 
facts out of the creature along with my property. 
Poor darlings ! Can I ever wear you again, soiled by this 
contact? Look at this riviere , Marion, do! and this, 
the de Savigny collier , once my great grandmother’s, 
the de Savigny who danced with Louis Seize and lost 
her head in the Terror. I might get ’em all reset, of 
course, but it costs ” 

“What was she doing out there on the Corniche 
with all these upon her, dressed and veiled like a girl 
for her first communion?” 

“Ahah! you want to know, do you? That is what 
my method elicited!” 

“Slightly drastic, my dear, even for here, where a 
juge d' instruction carries cross-examination pretty far. 
Your method was Russian, Third Section. The way 
you thumped her! She will be able to show marks, 
Ad&la — I feel positive we shall have trouble. You 
are not in London now, my dear, nor is this Conradson 
creature a dumb, helpless Cabinet Minister! Oh, it is 
all very well to say pooh, but — Here comes the tea. 
Throw a chair-back over those stones, quick! Never 
show jewels to a foreign maid en masse , it is folly, and 
may lead. . . . Entrezl ” 

“ Now we may talk. Put those things away whilst 
I pour. How did you find out?” 

“Guess! But you wouldn’t in a week. Did you 
know that a young de Savigny, un ralliS, is honorary 
private secretary to the Minister of the Interior? We 
are distant cousins; the dear boy (whom I assisted 
when he was in disgrace in London) has always sworn 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 289 

to recompense me. He sent me word yesterday that 
the French Government had yielded to the representa- 
tions of the American and English Embassies and were 
about to expel that wretched fellow from French terri- 
tory.” 

‘ 4 Who ? not your late — The Guide ? ’ ’ 

“Use that word to me again, Marion, and I go to 
bed and tell you nothing ! I will not be interrupted ! ’ ’ 

“I apologise, dear, I promise! Make it up and go 
ahead.” 

“Done with you, but don’t offend twice. Where 
was I? Oh, I knew before you were down this morn- 
ing that the Republic had given him twelve hours to 
pack and cross the frontier. That meant a scramble, 
a grab. I guessed what he would be at and was into 
my war-paint and ordered a taxi.” 

“ And induced me to accompany you without a hint 
of the awful things I should witness.” 

“Exactly, I needed a witness.” 

4 ‘Wretch! Shall I ever trust you again? Go 
on!” 

“ I flew round to the different Households, warning 
my friends, but everywhere he had been before me, 
reclaiming and borrowing money and jewellery upon 
one pretext or another. But at Agay I learnt what I 
most wanted to know — to whom he had given my 
diamonds. I had suspected another woman — been 
barking up the wrong tree, my dear ! It was not Sister 
Placentia after all (although she had one or two, I ’ll 
get even with her yet, see if I don’t !) . It was the Con- 
radson, a chit of a girl in the same Household, one of 
the Placentia Family, the last new Handmaid! How 
she had kept it from us, Heaven knows! But a 
woman at Agay knew, had been shown the things 


19 


290 


Who Laughs Last 

(under seal of secrecy !) and naturally told me. Hear- 
ing that I knew I had no time to lose and headed back 
as fast as that man could drive.” 

“ I thought I should have died! It was outrageous 
even for France!” 

“ He certainly earned his pourboire. And just when 
I thought I must have been too late, there, at the cross- 
roads I saw her and recognised the skivvey.” 

“Pulled the check-string, jumped whilst we were 
running ten miles an hour, and went for her as a 
terrier goes for a cat!” 

Mrs. Winterbourne smiled complacently. “She is 
a cat, and you did n’t know your Ad&la. I have an 
eye, my dear, et un flair. I spotted the creature at a 
hundred yards by the swing of her skirt as she turned. 
Gracious goodness! the things she wept out to me in 
excuse! He, the fellow. (Ssh! stop! No, I admit 
you did not ‘breathe the forbidden word,’ but your 
lips formed it. Take care !) He , I repeat, had written 
her, sent the letter by special messenger, his latest 
Revelation! She, and she only, was the Favoured of 
the Lord, the Anointed Handmaiden (ugh !) and was to 
await his coming at those cross-roads, ‘under a palm 
tree,’ if you please, where we found her, ‘adorned 
as a bride,’ with all her jewels (mine, Marion!). 
In another minute he would have been there and 
‘pinched’ the lot. ...” 

“From what I saw and heard, it was you who did 
the pinching!” 

“Be still, you incorrigible chatterbox! And spare 
your pity. I probably saved her from worse; Heaven 
alone knows what misery! She knew — we all of us 
knew — that our gifts were for the Apostolic Common- 
wealth ; and for her, a nobody, a Conradson person, to 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 291 

be accepting presents on the sly, secretly hoarding a 
couple of thousand pounds worth of ” 

‘ ‘ Inexcusable ! I give her to you ! But, at the same 
time, your procedure, though effective, was distinctly 
unconventional. And, my dear, this afternoon’s work 
may be all right, from your point of view: thanks to 
your cousin in the Interieur, and the Embassies, and 
your own extremely capable right hand, you seem to 
have extricated yourself from one more muddle. (You 
pickle, you ! — will you ever steady down into matronly 
respectability? ‘Never?’ — I thought not!) But 
where do I come in? You have dragged me by the 
head and ears into a discreditable fracas (Yes, you 
have, Ad&la ! and I ’ll thank you to listen to me now !) 
and, so far, you have not lent a finger to help me 
in what I came here for. Where is the Wentworth 
girl? Do give your brains to it! She was within a 
mile and a half of the gave , here at St. Lopez, a fort- 
night ago — the post-mark shows that — and I get no 
nearer.” 

‘‘The Maire?” 

‘ ‘ A perfect idiot. The English Consul a dying man . 
No English doctor, nor chaplain, nor anything. I 
have gone through the list of visitors at the Mairie, 
but of course she will not be in a hotel. And the 
private villas which are occupied give no clue. There 
is a Miss Smith at the Casa Bolivar, about whom 
nobody knows anything, a creature who spends all her 
days at Monte Carlo, but the Wentworths are rather 
swagger people, man and wife and maid, probably, if 
not a valet as well. I have been twice to the Bolivar 
place; it is shut up and a board up ‘d louer .’ That, at 
least, is out of the question. They must have moved 
on and taken the girl with them. What do you say? ” 


292 Who Laughs Last 

Addla felt herself colour and began talking to gain 
time. ‘ ‘ Casa Bolivar ! ’ * 

“You are wasting time. A good Parisian detective 
would have found her before this. Why did n’t you 
tell me all this a week ago? Let me act for you ; I owe 
you one, and feel myself in luck, somehow. What is 
that shabby fiacre doing in front with a couple of 
country people? They have come to the wrong 
address obviously.” 

“Here we are, let us send in our cards.” The lady 
had none. Billy, who, while speaking, had forgotten 
that he was equally destitute, had dived in the usual 
pocket, found a gold case. “Hillo! What’s this? 
Not mine. How did I — ?” When opened it showed 
the cards of a person unknown to either, the Rev . 
0. Y. Simpkinson, M.A. 

“Have n’t the faintest recollection of where I stole 
this,” remarked the boy, from whose memory the 
record of an automatic movement had been overlaid 
by later and deeper impressions. “Anyway, we can 
make free with a couple of these ; here goes ! ” He pen- 
cilled upon the back of the first: To Mrs. Bohun, to 
introduce Miss Wentworth , addressing the second to 
his mother from himself, and handed both to the 
expectant suisse. 

At the expiration of half a minute a shriek sounded 
from the open windows of a room on the seconde. * ‘That 
is my mother,” remarked Billy, sedately. “ I think we 
might be getting out of this, don’t you know; saves a 
scene.” 

A whirlwind in petticoats was descending the stair, 
with a fine following breeze in attendance. The two 
parties of tea-drinkers in the lounge, whom the end 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 293 

of the season had not yet sent on to Montreux, pursed 
decorous lips and murmured astonished interrogatories 
to one another at seeing the two great English fashion- 
ables receiving a couple of young peasants with 
effusion. 

“What an extremely unbecoming frock, my dear! — 
and the ” 

“Yes, indeed! He might have come straight from 
one of those ” 

“But they [both spoke English, I heard them 
distinctly.” 

“Anyway, it is a most unconventional episode! 
Most diverting.” 

“Just what one might expect, though, from that 
astonishing Mrs. Winterbourne! Don’t say you 
didn’t know it was she, my dear! I recognised 
her from her portrait in the Sketch . It is lying 
about in the salon still, unless she has suppressed it. 
It was a snapshot of her spoiling Lord Holt’s part- 
ridge-drive with a kite labelled Votes for Women. 
Oh, you must have seen it!” 

“Really? How dense of me not to connect — so 
that is — ! But the noise they make is appalling ! Her 
friend’s rooms are directly beneath mine, and their 
shouts and laughter, and the tobacco, are, well, not 
what I am accustomed to in my circle. Thank God, 
my dear, there is still a Middle Class! ” 

“ But this can have nothing to do with the Suffrage. 
It looks more like — like, a ” 

“A runaway match, you mean? It might certainly 
bear that interpretation. Nothing injudicious, I trust, 
for I must say it seems a case.” 

Something of prophetic divination, a touch of the 
sibyl, must surely reside in virgin bosoms; here, 


294 


Who Laughs Last 

for example, were two elderly spinsters projecting 
wrinkled, spectacled noses into the future, and fore- 
casting an event as yet far below the horizon which 
illuminated no imagination but theirs. 

Upon the seconde explanations raged tempestuously. 
Four people cannot simultaneously discuss three sets 
of circumstances to advantage; especially if Mrs. 
Winterbourne be one of the speakers, a lady known to 
her friends as the loudest, most vivacious and ex- 
clamatory of conversationalists. Almost at the outset 
it was recognised that mother and son had much 
to explain which demanded privacy. Mrs. Bohun 
bore Millicent Wentworth off to the privacy of her own 
chamber, rang for tea, and laid the girl upon a couch, 
removed her shoes, opened a scent-bottle, sponged her 
forehead and hands, and forbade her to speak. 

“Oh, but, Marion dear, I ’m not so bad as all this! 
I really feel pretty fit. (Though presently I should 
like a bath !) I ’ve just risen from a sumptuous meal, 
the best I think I ever ate in all my life. That delight- 
ful boy simply — he simply — entertained me royally. 
(That sounds better than ‘did me proud,’ doesn’t 
it?) Oh, I know you are dying to hear all about my 
letter. You did get it, and you did come, you dearest 
thing, you ! I knew you would — yes, and you could 
n’t find the house. Oh, you dear! — you darling!” 
(More kisses.) “And now all that remains is to find 
dear papa.” 

“That should not be difficult. Now tell me how it 
began. So? Oh, never, surely! . . . Outrageous! 
. . . What a fiend! . . .Abominable!” . . . The 
story of five weeks ran to its conclusion. Before the 
end it was the hearer who was weeping hot tears of 
indignant pity. 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivai 295 

44 My poor child ! But what am I thinking of? We 
must be up and doing! You cannot be seen in those 
things. There must surely be some means of reclaim- 
ing your boxes. Let us take Mrs. Winterbourne into 
council. She is very efficient, and has any amount of 
go. By-the-bye, may one inquire what her son is 
doing down here, and in those extraordinary gar- 
ments? He is most successfully disguised; I should 
never have recognised him. But don’t tell me now. 
AdUa! Oh, but you must come! and at once! — Miss 
Wentworth and I need you badly.” 

“Go, mother, this will keep,” said Billy, and Milli- 
cent heard him. His mother arose, stormy-red and 
indignant from the recital of another tale of wrong, the 
one we wot of. (“Oh, that Sam!”) “Well, Marion, 
what is it?” 

As the story of Millicent’s imprisonment ended, 
the heat-lightnings in Addla’s smouldering eyes flashed 
forth, accompanied by shocks of laughter. 4 4 That all ? 
We ought to be able to put that right among us, ought 
n’t we? ” She rang : 44 Deux autos, s’il-vous plait, vite ! 
(We shall want the second for the luggage.) No, 
Marion, I shall not take a sergent-de-ville. Nor apply 
to the Consul (who is ill). Leave it to me.” 

They alit at the foot of the lane and bade the chauf- 
feurs wait. The garden door was fast, the house 
showed no sign of life. One of the party had seen 
that door twice before with different eyes and other 
designs. She frowned silently, wondering at herself-— 
and thanked her Maker. 

The wall was nine feet high, but Billy went over it 
like a cat and next moment admitted them to the 
premises. Sounds of snoring from the kitchen assured 
them that Nicoletta was still sleeping off her potations. 


296 


Who Laughs Last 

The lock of an upstairs door, designated by Miss Went- 
worth, yielded to Billy’s foot. There stood the boxes, 
still bearing the initials of their owner in scarlet capi- 
tals, and the labels attached before their last journey. 

“Down-stairs, Billy, and mount guard! We shall 
want you in five minutes to get these to the taxi.” 
Billy understood that the owner of the impounded 
clothing would be exchanging before leaving the scene 
of her incarceration. He felt most particularly 
nervous. To have burgled in a righteous cause is 
better than the other way, but is still burglary. He 
was anything but sure of his position, or how his action 
might look to a jury. The lady was a minor still, and 
stepmothers might have very definite rights of control 
under the Code Napoleon for anything he knew. He 
wished himself, and all of them, well through the next 
ten minutes. A key grated, the door in the wall 
opened, a tall, fine woman, handsome and stylishly 
dressed, was entering; she seemed warm and discom- 
posed, as though she had walked too fast in the heat 
or had undergone some disturbing experience, for her 
shoulders rose and fell, she carried her eyes low, and her 
lips were moving. Then, at some sound of laughter 
from the floor above, she glanced up and saw Billy. 

“ Que voulez-vous? ” she asked imperiously ; the boy, 
amused, but uncomfortable, maintained silence, seeing 
himself mistaken for some follower of the sleeping 
Nicoletta. “ Va, m’sieur!” she said severely, making 
as if she would have reopened the door. 

But her first words had been heard by the ladies 
above, who descended the uncarpeted stair with a rush, 
the Winterbourne first. She swept down upon the 
newcomer superbly, grande dame to the tips of her 
fingers. “Who may you be, madam?” 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 297 

“ The mistress of this villa, madame, and who ?” 

“ Miss Smith, I understand.” 

“Yes, but who . . . ?” 

“The boxes are ready, Billy. Now, Miss Smith, 
what do you mean by keeping my friend Miss Milli- 
cent Wentworth a prisoner here for a month past? 
Don’t tell us that you are Mrs. Wentworth, if you 
please, or we shall take you straight to the Mairie, 
where you have registered yourself under a false name. 
That alone will ensure you public lodging. You may 
as well know at once that my friend the Maire, under 
instructions from the Ministry, has been searching for 
you, madame, for the past fortnight. He will be 
pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

The woman’s face fell. The fight went out of her; 
the Winterbourne saw victory and sounded the 
charge. 

“Stand aside, if you please. You, at any rate, 
have no right to these boxes; they are not labelled 
Smith so far as I can see. Put them down outside, 
Billy, and bring up the taxis. Are you ready, Marion ? 
Have you everything, Miss Wentworth? Ah, your 
jewellery; I had forgotten.” She whirled upon the 
defeated, tongue-tied woman, whose hand had flown 
to her side. 

“ Hold her up, Marion, don’t let her drop! Sh! she 
is down ! Well, take her legs — so ; I have her shoulders ; 
into the house with her before those chauffeurs see 
anything. Miss Wentworth, dear, please see your 
trunks upon one of those autos, and then join us 
inside.” 

Between them they carried the almost inanimate 
body to the nearest room, bumped it down with the 
salutary roughness which women know better than 


298 


Who Laughs Last 


men how to apply to the undeserving of their own sex. 
The patient began to weep. 

“Oh, oh, and it comes all together! Jewellery? 
There was none. Well, how should I know? I saw 
none. The boxes were opened were they? She must 
have done it herself. They were never in my room. 
How do you know whose room it was? Oh, well, have 
it your own way, no doubt you know best ! Sold then, 
pawned then, Mont de Pi6t6 at Cannes ; tickets in my 
purse. Oh, oh! Roualleyn! Roualleyn! where are 
they taking you?” Her voice ran up until Mrs. 
Winterbourne splashed water into her open mouth 
and eyes. 

“That ’s Mr. Farintosh’s Christian name, I 
think,” whispered Millicent. The others nodded 
understandingly. 

“Now, Miss Smith, this must stop; yes, at once. 
You will do yourself no good by exhibitions of this 
sort. Next time I will bring you round with this hat- 
pin. You have owned to stealing this young lady’s 
valuables. Where is her father 2 ’ ’ 

Magistrates, Inspectors of Police, Governors of 
Jails, Counsel, Chairmen of Public Meetings, yes, and 
luckless Cabinet Ministers, had found the redoubtable 
Ad&la Winterbourne a most uncompromising woman. 
Upon this occasion and in a worthy cause she touched 
greatness. The question which she had put to the 
whimpering, broken creature upon the floor was crucial, 
only to be answered in the last resort; but in her 
efforts to evade, or to postpone, much came out. A 
successful week at the tables had ended in a day of 
persistent bad luck, culminating in disaster. Captain 
Roualleyn Farintosh, her sporting partner, had en- 
deavoured to cash another of those initialled per- 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 299 

procuration cheques, and had been arrested. The last 
had been refused payment at Welbury; the French 
Bank had been waiting for the opportunity. His lady 
companion had been permitted to escape. She had 
returned to St. Lopez penniless, to find Casa Bolivar in 
possession of the enemy. “Oh, it is all Victor’s fault, 
all, all! She would have married him, she was gone 
upon him ! Y ou were ! Y ou know you were ! ’ ’ 

Millicent Wentworth flamed silently, too proud to 
defend herself from the aspersions of a convicted thief. 
Billy had slipped from the room. “Give me a hun- 
dred pounds and I ’ll live in Tangier, or somewhere — 
anywhere!” 

“For the tenth time, Miss Smith, where is Mr. 
Wentworth?” 

“Dead, six weeks ago; dead and buried.” Milli- 
cent choked, but bore up, listening. 

“How? Where?” 

“At Monte Carlo. He dropped dead in the gar- 
dens.” Out it all came, piecemeal. The ill-mated 
couple had been staying at Bordighera, where the wife 
had made undesirable acquaintance. Mr. Went- 
worth’s heart was giving trouble; never strong since 
his rowing days, affected by the wearing excitement 
of an uncongenial woman upon whose recreations and 
friendships he had found it needful to exercise super- 
vision. When his doctor recommended him to pass a 
couple of days in his room the lady had taken the 
opportunity to pay a flying visit to Monte Carlo in 
the company of an elderly gambler as to whose regi- 
mental record the vaguest information was obtainable. 
Missing her at luncheon, the husband’s suspicions 
had taken definite shape; he had hastened to Monte 
Carlo, and had found the lady at play attended by her 


300 


Who Laughs Last 

cavalier, a person and a recreation she had promised 
to renounce. Mr. Cornwallis Wentworth was a 
gentleman. Though deeply moved at the discovery of 
this domestic treachery, he repressed every outward 
sign of anger, offered his arm to his wife, and led her 
from the table to a quiet nook among the shrubberies, 
where, without a word, he fell dead 

The miserable woman had found herself face to face 
with ruin. Their marriage had been hurried on by her 
own wish, and had been silently repented by her hus- 
band at the end of the first month. There had been 
no settlements, nor, as she had occasion to know, did 
her recent behaviour entitle her to anything under his 
will as recently altered. One chance, a bad one, and 
desperate at best, but the only available expedient, 
opened before her. The dead man was known to no 
one at Monte Carlo; he had paid his first and last 
visit to the tables. The wife repudiated all but the 
merest acquaintance with the deceased, and relin- 
quished the body to the management, who in such 
cases ask few questions and defray the cost of a per- 
functory interment. Scandals are bad for business. 

“ What else could I do? He had kept me short for 
months. I could not have found a fiver to pay for a 
funeral, much less to have the body sent home. I had 
myself to think of. Would either of you like to be in 
the papers over a thing like that? What did it matter 
to him where he was buried? They could have found 
out who he was? How? I took his cards and letters 
before going for the gardien. . . . Certainly not! 
How dare you! Oh, don't!! Well, perhaps I may 
have done. I can’t remember. What was the use of 
leaving it for the men? He had no more use for it, 
and I was precious hard up. Don’t look at me that 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 301 

way! I won’t have it! What would you have done? 
You have never been poor abroad, evidently. Try it 
and see how you like it ! Oh, what shall I do? Every- 
thing has fallen in all at once; I was flush last night. 
I was chucking money away this morning — always 
was a fool with money, and always shall be! And 
to-night I have n’t a five-franc piece, or a thing I can 
put away. And they have locked up Roualleyn, who 
would have seen me through ! Look here. He did the 
forgeries, you won’t want me , give me a hundred and 
let me get away to Tangier ! ” 

The ladies looked upon one another. Miss Went- 
worth was weeping in the passage. “It is one way 
out of it,” whispered Marion Bohun. “I have 
nothing about me; have you, Ad&la?” 

“ Not a hundred francs,” replied Mrs. Wintei bourne. 

It was Billy who passed a soiled and crumpled 
envelope to the dishevelled creature upon the floor. 
“There ought to be a — ” he began, but the woman, 
after one glance of incredulous and amazed delight, 
waved the unopened cover around her head shrieking 
with laughter. 

“Oh, what is it? Please come away!” sobbed the 
young girl outside. It was Billy who offered her his 
arm and put her into the motor. The ladies followed. 
Nor too soon; Nicoletta, unlaced, dishevelled, blear- 
eyed, was swaying in the doorway of her kitchen, mut- 
tering incoherencies. She did not detain them; she 
shall not us. Casa Bolivar and its inmates pass out of 
this story. The unsavoury little place is still & louer 
ou & vendre. 

The taxis unloaded beneath the eyes of a decorously 
inquisitive chorus. 

“My dear, can it be the same girl? What a differ- 


302 


Who Laughs Last 

ence dress does make, to be sure! Her trunks, I sup- 
pose; very large and heavy — quite English! Oh, 
certainly. And she has been crying. The young 
fellow looks depressed, too, and the ladies! Depend 
upon it the escapade has ended badly. Either the 
young people have been traced and intercepted, or 
have come to the end of their resources and surren- 
dered at discretion. It looks like it.” 

It did. But the four actors in this misunderstood 
drama had no thought for their audience. Mrs. 
Bohun engaged a room for Millicent and helped her to 
unpack. (She had better not begin to think to-night 
or we shall have her ill.) 

In Mrs. Winterbourne’s room Billy was being put 
through his facings a second time. There was much 
that he wanted to know, but knew not how to ask. 
The mother’s mind was full of her son’s wrongs. The 
Winterbourne feathers were up. Ad&la had scored 
twice since lunch, but was unsatisfied, it was her day. 

“ Oh, if Sam were here ! Would n’t I give it to him ! 
And I will, too ! How could you be such a fool as to 
use your father’s name?” 

“Ignorance, mother, sheer ignorance !” murmured 
Billy, innocently plagiarising Dr. Johnson. “I really 
had no idea — but, of course, I should never do such a 
thing again. Do you know, I don’t fancy the pater 
minded so much, it was Sam.” 

“Of course! But why did your father permit — ? 
I ’ll have it out with him ! He shall not treat my son 
so! To make you send in your papers! Horrid! 
Does he think — ? Oh, I ’ll start for England, 
I ’ll ” 

“Look here, mother, I ’d really much rather you 
did n’t. Yes, actually. I mean it. The poor old 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 303 

pater is precious shaky, looks heaps older ; hope to God 
he is n’t breaking up. I might have made a better 
fight for it, but, well, with him like that I could n’t, 
you know. I think it will all come right in time, and 
so does Masson. Masson’s no end of a brick; you 
don’t know Masson. W e write regularly. He bought 
Kathleen. He is taking care of my eggs. He under- 
stands things, all sorts of things — a real good sort.” 
Billy’s vocabulary, never adequate, failed him in the 
attempt to depict the virtues of his friend. 

“ Oh, he is that sort, is he? I found him a civil old 
thing, but not too sympathetic. I shall like him better 
in future for my boy’s sake. Anybody who stood by 
you, Billy, I ’ll stand by; any one who did n’t I ’ll go 
for! How did the Lambkin frame? and Gossett? 
But of course you did n’t drag them into it. I ought 
to have heard from Lambkin before this — my own 
fault, moving about and leaving no forwarding 
addresses.” The lady bit her lip absently, her own 
follies coming home to her. Billy summoned his 
courage and spoke. 

“I say, mother, do you mind telling me where you 
have been all this time? No, wait a bit ! It was hav- 
ing no cheque from you that drove me into taking that 
liberty, you know. Then Masson and I called at your 
place and found it shut up. He has been precious 
anxious to get into touch with you for some time past 
(so have I, naturally). Well, how shall I begin? Oh, 
yesterday, was it? — I am losing count (fact is, I have 
made a precious long day of it and am jolly well tired) 
— yesterday I spotted your hand upon a letter-back 
and went for the chappie who had it ” 

“Billy, you young — ” broke in the mother in 
delighted surprise. 


304 


Who Laughs Last 

“ Oh, I know it was bad form, but I had to do some- 
thing and had nobody to ask, and the old bounder 
began trying to bluff and — er — to try his hanky-panky 
mesmerism on me, so I just ...” 

“Seized the letter? — and read it? Of course ! You 
wicked boy! What right? And mine, too! But 
what else could you do? Just so! And now,” red- 
dening, “you are troubled at what . . . and . . . 
and naturally want to know. . . . Billy, Billy ! your 
poor mother has been a fool! a silly, weak, trusting 
fool! No, sit down, don’t kiss me yet! I was n’t the 
only. . . . There were fifty of us, idiots ! miserables ! 
hypnotised, obsessed, gulled by that old charlatan! 
He professed — we believed. You have no conception 
of his powers!” 

“Jolly soon should have had if I ’d let him get to 
work with his Mauser,” muttered the boy. 

“ It came to that!” 

“He had got another letter besides yours, mother, 
and something had put him into a tidy paddy. Then, 
just as he took yours out to read I chipped in. He sat 
up, tried passes — you know, the usual thing — and 
when that failed, for I went for him at once, he was 
getting at his pistol, but you see I had to think about 
you, mother, and could not afford to be particular, 
so I just let him understand that I was n’t taking any.” 

“And took this!” patting the letter, her own, that 
lay between them. “ Billy, you have done better than 
you know. This is the only letter I ever wrote to that 
man. He enchanted me — how shall I say? But you 
would never understand. Nobody ever will. He was 
a marvel, a prophet gone wrong.” 

“I know,” nodded Billy, sagely. “They turn ’em 
out that way in the States, I believe.” 


The Raiding of Casa Bolivar 305 

“Oh, Lord! what despicable, rampant idiots women 
are!” 

“ I don’t see that, mother! ” 

“We are, I tell you! Thank God, Billy, that you 
are a Man!’’ 

“ I don’t know so much about that, mother,” mut- 
tered the boy, conscious of troubles of his own. The 
woman dabbed wet eyes with a morsel of lace and 
went on: 

“And I did n’t trust the fellow so blindly as some. 
I gave him jewellery (but have got that back to-day), 
but never transfers of stock, or powers of attorney, as 
some did. No! And now it is all over. He has had 
orders to leave French soil. ...” 

“That’s what upset him, I expect; he must 
have heard it pretty recently, for an hour or two be- 
fore he was planning to restore a chateau which 
would have sunk a couple of fortunes anyhow you 
take it.” 

An ormolu cupid upon a marble console struck a 
tiny cymbal. Billy glanced up. 

‘ ‘ I must be going ; last train. Have to meet Masson 
to-morrow at Callouris. Sure to be seeing you day 
later. Oh, my address ! ’ ’ He fumbled. ‘ * Must make 
free with another of this poor fellow’s.” He had 
remembered by this whence he had obtained that card- 
case. His mother watched him write, and turning the 
card absently in her fingers saw its printed face. 

“Where on earth did you get — •? * Poor fellow?’ 

Why ? Don’t you know who he is? ” 

“ Not in the least. The man is dead, mother; oldish 
person — long grey hair — a motor smash on the Cor- 
niche, this afternoon. I was there, saw it, you know, 
got this from the — the — body. Why? What ’s up? 


20 


306 


Who Laughs Last 

Did you know him? — Well — time ’s up; ’fraid I must 
trot. Trains won’t wait. I ’m off — kiss me!” 

He was gone. The woman lay back in her chair 
laughing faintly, tears forming in her eyes. The door 
opened, Marion sailed into her friend’s room unan- 
nounced, magnificent, impressive, a noble barque 
under full canvas, impelled by altruistic winds and 
freighted with motherly projects. 

“That poor, lonely child, Ad&la! — an absolute 
orphan, or worse, but we surely have cleared the step- 
mother off the stage! My heart bleeds for her. I 
adopt her! I know nothing of her means — well, next 
to nothing, then. Don’t tell me. I don’t wish to 
know! I ’ll bring her out — I ’ll — I always longed for 
a girl. You are crying? He is gone? Why? Oh! 
And what a fine boy!” The women kissed passion- 
ately, and kissed again and again, whilst understand- 
ings took root and grew. 

“ Of course he will, but neither of them sees it yet.” 

“He does n’t! I said just now, ‘What a charming 
girl,’ and he said, ‘Yes, good sort.’ Fancy! So, just 
to try him higher, I remarked that grief was unbecom- 
ing, and he replied that he supposed it must be, and oh, 
what do you think!” Poor Billy’s trouble was can- 
vassed and vengeance re- vowed upon his persecutors. 

‘ ‘ What a shame ! But we will put it right between us, 
eh? If your boy has a past, my girl has a future ” 

“And we had better be choosing the present.” 

“Ad£la, you are incorrigible! Give the poor darling 
a couple of months to get over her loss; ‘Let them 
alone, and they ’ll come home, and bring — ’ ” hummed 
the matchmaker. 

“ Marion — what d’ ye think? That Man is dead!” 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE TROUBLES OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN 

E ACH of the major professions has promulgated a 
moral code which its members infringe at their 
proper peril. Le moyen homme sensuel may without 
loss of caste back and run horses, lose money at bridge, 
occasionally (and in private only) exceed in liquor, and 
in other ways moderately misconduct himself. His 
acquaintance would prefer that he should not, but 
until his irregularities become scandalous they are 
winked at for the sake of business, or professional, or 
neighbourly relations. 

As we ascend the social scale we pass under the lens 
and the foible is recognised as a fault; things venial 
grow inexcusable, because affecting not only ourselves 
but our order. Whatever may have obtained in the 
past, a fox-hunting bishop, a judge of the High Court 
with horses in training, or an Admiral of intemperate 
habits on the active list is no longer permissible. An- 
alogously we now demand of professions of the second 
rank a higher standard of behaviour than is expected 
from the ordinary business man. Thomas, a dry- 
salter, may week-end at a Belgian kursaal; he is a fool 
if he does, but so long as his dry-salting is no worse 
than the dry-salting of men of regular lives his credit 
will not suffer. Richard and Henry, millers, are notori- 
307 


3°8 


Who Laughs Last 

ously not upon speaking terms, but their unfratemal 
behaviour does not affect the quality of their flour. 
For a banker the rule is more stringent; his private 
life must be above reproach, nor should any suspicion 
of unfriendly relations between members of the same 
firm disturb the faith of depositors in the placid and 
assured well-being of everything and everybody con- 
nected with the Concern to which they entrust their 
moneys. 

Mr. Samuel Winterbourne knew this, and had 
always acted upon it in practice, or would have done 
had such restraint upon his part been necessary. It 
had not been. For years past such trivial and passing 
differences as had arisen between his father and him- 
self had seldom outlasted the hour, and had never 
been exhibited beyond the door of the bank parlour. 
Now, for the first time in his experience, a serious 
breach had widened between them. Unaware of a 
fault, and unable to charge himself with remissness or 
with want of respect, the son went sorrowfully, know- 
ing that his presence was unpleasing to his father, and 
that he had forfeited, for no assignable reason, the 
confidence which he had enjoyed for nearly thirty 
years. 

He found that he was no longer welcome at his 
father’s table. The men met daily at the bank upon 
terms of cold, taciturn respect. The heart of the old 
man was hot within him. He had been overborne, 
talked down, not to say bullied, his wishes ignored, his 
servants bribed and questioned behind his back. He 
was to be managed, was he? A nurse — or a keeper, 
was it? — would presently be provided for him, eh? 
He would awake some fine morning to find his cheque- 
book locked up, his razors abstracted, and his house- 


The Troubles of a Righteous Man 309 

hold sorrowfully declining (under Samuel’s directions) 
to take orders from him? He had let the reins slip too 
far, he knew, but they should no farther escape from 
his fingers. He would pull himself together and show 
the borough, the bank, and Sam, if the fellow had eyes, 
that the old man was not by any means upon the shelf 
yet. This spirit was responsible for his resumption of 
old habitudes, for a firmer step, a more upright car- 
riage, more frequent appearances in public, more 
regular attendance at business. He would force the 
last ounce from powers which he refused to admit were 
failing. But, somehow, things did not work smoothly. 
He was confronted by a system. Routine work once 
delegated is not to be resumed capriciously and occa- 
sionally. If he issued directions as to the treatment 
of a certain overdrawn account he learnt that Mr. 
Samuel had been beforehand with him. Did the firm’s 
balance at its London agents engross his scrutiny, 
he perceived by pencilled memoranda that his partner 
had attended to the matter an hour before and was 
already in the train. When he would check his pri- 
vate drawings by his pass-book, the marginal ticks — 
Sam’s — showed that this, too, had been done for him 
by his indefatigable partner. It was Mr. Samuel here, 
and Mr. Samuel there, and Mr. Samuel everywhere; 
there was no room for the senior partner, he was the 
fifth wheel of the family coach. 

The new leaf pushes off the old, not, as we may 
surmise, without some resentful vibration in the 
moribund foliage. Mr. Abraham Winterbourne was 
perhaps less successful than Mr. Samuel in concealing 
from others his repugnance to a necessary process. In 
the matter of that private account, now, his surprise 
had been manifest to our Mr. Wadbury, to whom a 


3io 


Who Laughs Last 

sharp remonstrance (entirely unmerited) had been 
addressed. The man had obeyed Mr. Samuel unwill- 
ingly, had foreseen ructions, prevision which he had 
communicated to our Messrs. Gilpin and Haynes, 
gentlemen long in the service of the Concern, who have 
already made passing entrances and exits in Chapters 
II and IX of this veracious chronicle. “Knew that 
would n’t wash, Gilpie; said so at the time (to myself, 
of course. Not a morsel of use saying so to Mister 
Sam; I don’t think!)” Hence the strained relations 
which subsisted behind that massive door of dark oak 
which screened the secrets of the bank parlour were 
not so unsuspected as the partners supposed. Our 
servants watch our every movement with instructed 
eyes: our very dogs and horses are aware when some- 
thing has gone wrong with us, if only for an hour, and 
be sure that a quarrel of growing and deepening bitter- 
ness cannot run a two months’ course between the 
principals of a great private bank without the staff 
getting an inkling as to how things are going, and con- 
fiding their knowledge to their wives: who, in turn, 
confide, under seal of strictest secrecy, of course, their 
morsel of tasty news to the dearest female friend of 
each, and thus it comes round. And by such channels 
a considerable proportion of the burgesses of Welbury 
learnt, in one form or another, that old Mr. Winter- 
bourne was getting precious difficult to do with, and 
that Mister Sam was drawing the line too tight with 
his pa, and might live to regret his masterful ways if 
his pa did n’t go dotty first. 

The same idea had been clothed in less idiomatic 
English by men of the Winterbournes’ own set, to 
whom Mr. Sam’s genius for management was not 
unknown. Naturally the Hornbeams household ob- 


The Troubles of a Righteous Man 31 1 

served and Icommented. Mrs. Lambkin’s bimonthly 
letter to her absent mistress ran as follows: 

“ Hornbeams," 
ij/ May 19 — . 

“Madam, — Though still being without a line from 
you since January 27, I take my pen to wish you may 
be keeping your health as the writer do hers. I do 
not know whether you received the letter which I sent 
out of turn to tell you of the sad doings between Mr. 
Sam and poor Master Wilbraham. Supposing you to 
have received it I will no further enlarge. Merely to 
add that I have received three very nice letters from 
the dear young gentleman from Poste Restante, Cal- 
louris, France, where he seem to be doing well, and en- 
joying himself, or so he say. But, as you know, he had 
always a fine sperrit, and would not knock under to no 
one. I write to him regular, as perhaps he have told 
you. As to my honoured master I can honest report 
that he have picked up wonderful. He walk better, 
he eat his food better, and he certain sleep no worse. 
Though saying nothing to me I know well from signs 
(having been in his service over thirty years I think 
I may speak pretty positive) as he simply pine for his 
boy. He have had words with Mr. Samuel, the worst 
and longest upset to last of any I recollect in my time. 
Mr. S. has n’t dined here six weeks past. I have my 
doubts if he ever do again. Mr. Gossett, who see more 
of them when out than me, tells me that they are never 
seen together now, and he hear from the porter at the 
Bank House that they seldom exchange a word except 
upon business, and none too many of them even. I 
believe it began with poor Master Billy, but has gone 
farther since ! Mr. Sam taking it into his head to poke 


312 


Who Laughs Last 

his nose into what letters come for the servants’ hall, 
also to inquire of the maids about Mr. Winterbourne’s 
health (instead of coming to me if he could n’t trust his 
own eyes) and this in a very peculiar and pointed 
manner. Which my dear and honoured master get- 
ting to know of, heaven knows how, but he certainly 
did, upset him most uncommon and led to words. As 
you know if there is one thing more than another as 
aged people will not stand it is being managed by their 
own children before they are fit for it. It is my belief, 
Madam, that my dear master will never go childish, 
but will break sudden and once for all. When that 
day come I will send you a telegraph as sure as I am 
alive and well to-day. For sure I am that when that 
day come he will want two persons, and those persons, 
Madam, will be you and Master Billy. 

“So respectfully wishing you good health and long 
life, — I remain, Madam, your attached and obedient 
servant, 

“Maria Lambkin.” 

If Mr. Samuel was unaware that the trouble was 
known, he was under no illusions as to its gravity. 
His father had been through life a stanch friend to the 
friendly, but to his foes, and to those who thwarted 
him, a steady hater. To be in Winterbourne’s black 
books, to have Winterbourne against you, had been for 
thirty years a particularly undesirable state of things 
for a Welbury tradesman or public character. He was 
rich, he was influential, he had a good memory, he had 
a long arm, he could wait, he never threatened. When 
the blow fell the neighbours of the smitten man were 
used to say that they had warned him, and that it 
never did any good to get across Mr. Winterbourne. 


The Troubles of a Righteous Man 313 

Reflections which usually were made too late. The 
son saw the need for reconciliation ; he was not a born 
apologist, and his movements were maladroit. He 
began by excusing himself, nor ever got beyond this 
stage, for his father coldly interrupted the exordium by 
reminding him that he had made no charges, and asked 
for no excuses, in fact he did not know what he was 
driving at, and did not particularly want to. It is not 
easy for a placable man to ensue peace in the face of 
such discouraging treatment as this, nor was Mr. Sam- 
uel by nature placable. He bowed over folded hands 
and pursed lips, telling himself that he had done more 
than was called for and all that was possible. The 
man knew perfectly that Billy was at the bottom of it. 
The old man had not forgiven the elder son for his 
treatment of the younger; whilst Samuel held him to 
his bargain there would be no peace. But to admit a 
mistake was more than Samuel could bring himself to 
concede. During these weeks he found his brother 
often in his thoughts. He wished to banish him from 
his mental presence as he had from his physical, but it 
was not to be. Billy, though absent, stood across his 
sunshine, obstructed his path, and disturbed his lying 
down. He came very near to hating the boy. For 
one thing, he was killing his father (this was Sam’s 
way of putting it). This flush of sternly vigorous old 
age after years of increasing decreptitude could not 
last ; it was but the candle flaring in its flooded socket. 
Darkness was near. And meanwhile time was running 
on, the time for all manner of imperatively-needed 
arrangements, which this pernicious boy’s misbeha- 
viour, and the way in which his father was taking his 
treatment of it, made impossible. “Behold the days 
of mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay 


314 


Who Laughs Last 

my brother.” So said another jealousy-ridden elder 
son in times of old. Many centuries have passed since 
Esau meditated revenge, and their passage has made 
some crimes more difficult, fratricide among others; I 
am inclined to think that Samuel Winterbourne, lead- 
ing Evangelical Churchman of his town though he be, 
Justice of the Peace, too, and holder of many promi- 
nent and honourable offices, has to thank his environ- 
ment more than his own heart that during those weeks 
of painful anxiety he did not find his thoughts turn in 
the same direction as did those of the first-born of 
Isaac. Certainly, at the division of the property, in 
the final settlement of his father’s estate, Master Wil- 
braham would find an uncompromising executor to 
deal with. 

Does the reader recall the distinction drawn by One 
of old between mere legal righteousness and goodness 
of heart? Mr. Samuel Winterbourne was the typical 
righteous man ; he would not knowingly have wronged 
any one, and what is more, he did not believe that he 
had. But he was determined that no one should 
wrong him, and of these two articles of the man’s 
creed the latter took precedence. He meant to be 
just to all, he was certainly just to himself. Hence, 
notwithstanding his multifarious activities in the pub- 
lic service, his personality excited no enthusiasm; 
scarcely for Mr. Samuel Winterbourne would one 
have dared to die. 

A wearing domestic misunderstanding was pecu- 
liarly inopportune. He was always full-handed, but 
this juncture found him loaded down with public 
affairs. As chairman of the Drainage Committee of 
Welbury Corporation he had been for years engaged in 
arduous and complicated legal proceedings with the 


The Troubles of a Righteous Man 315 

owner of a landed estate in the neighbourhood. This 
land, popularly known to Welburians as “Naboth’s 
Vineyard,” had long been desired for the purposes of 
a sewage farm. Negotiations for the purchase begun 
four years previously had been carried within sight of a 
successful issue when the owner of an adjacent estate 
had stepped in and, as he averred, to protect his prop- 
erty, had bought the coveted acres over the head of the 
Corporation! Picture the indignation of Welbury! 
its irritation with the dilatory bargaining of its trusted 
agents, its anger with this interloper. Land the town 
must have, for the Local Government Board would no 
longer wink at sewage treated in mediaeval fashion, 
nor should our burgesses be permitted to die of zymo- 
tic disease as their fathers had time out of mind. Con- 
ceive then injunctions and a general filing of bills in 
the Chancery division of the High Court, briefing of 
counsel and collection of evidence, not without 
expense. By whom paid? The ratepayers, of course, 
in the long run, but, in the first instance, by drafts 
upon the Corporation account at Winterbournes, 
which presently became heavily overdrawn. Not 
that Mr. Samuel objected; the town was prosperous, 
the security of its borough rate was unimpeachable. 
So soon as judgment was delivered (the appeal was 
down for hearing at last) a Corporation Loan would 
have to be floated, but let its issue be postponed as 
long as possible, for the market was adverse. Every- 
body was rubbering, Corporation Stocks neglected. 
So the City advised Mr. Samuel, and he the Council. 
“ Meanwhile, Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, all I can say 
is, that if your Town Clerk and the Borough Accoun- 
tant so advise you, I am willing that you should con- 
tinue a little longer to draw upon my firm.” (Cheers.) 


316 Who Laughs Last 

The already heavy overdraft mounted and mounted. 
It looked good business. The managers of the 
branches of Joint Stock banks established in the town 
smiled rather jealously; this was distinctly business 
for City houses, their own head offices, for choice, but 
was beyond the scope of your private banker, whose 
legitimate function was to nurse the trading class of 
his vicinity. If overdrafts running into these figures 
were permitted by Winterbournes, some one in need 
of backing nearer home must go short. Besides, an 
advance of such dimensions is n’t a liquid security, 
you know; (bad banking, they called it, but what will 
jealousy say?) They wondered whether old Winter- 
bourne liked it; ’t was whispered he did n’t, but had 
been overruled. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A WINDFALL AND ITS RESULTS 

M R. GOSSETT believed himself to be of the same 
age as his master; he might have been a year 
or so the elder, could n’t say. Poor people did n’t 
keep their reckonings so careful when he was a young 
’un as wot they does nowadays. All Gossett was sure 
of was that he was Berkshire-born, knew the inside 
of Bradfield Union, had done a bit of poachin’ in 
his time, and had fought through the Rooshian War. 
Havin’ bin enlisted when recruits was scarce and the 
Government glad and thankful to get country boys 
as could stand the work and the weather, he had sworn 
to a year more than he rightly possessed, so much 
he would admit; also (but that was the sergeant’s 
doin’s) had bin kep’ in bed all day to lengthen he 
out before bein’ put under the standards, and bin 
measured by candle-light with slips o’ cheese inside 
the heels of his stockings to bring the up to his heigh th. 
Billy, who reverently worshipped the old soldier, 
who reciprocated by blindly loving the quiet, brave 
boy — Billy, I say, had heard all this several times, and 
many another of the old gunner’s war-stories; the 
boy’s conception of the dread fact of war was based 
more upon Gossett than upon his thumbings of the 
fat Kinglake volumes in the Hornbeams library, 
317 


3 i 8 Who Laughs Last 

a history which he distrusted as the work of a civilian, 
and a man with a brief, dontcherknow, as even a 
fellow like me can see, dontcherknow, for how, etc. 
But this came a little later. Billy, the boy, sitting 
open-mouthed by the harness-room stove, watching 
the inside of his little hunting-saddle steaming, and 
hearing the cracked old voice drone on, had heard 
strange things and never forgot that it was Gossetts 
rather than the Raglans, the Cambridges, and the 
still, if possible, more amazing English generals 
who followed them, who worried England through 
that appalling mess. “Us used to go down to the 
Jew-shop in Balaclava, me and my mate, for to see 
what might be picked up to keep the life in us. He ’d 
go inside and buy a herrin’ ; I ’d stick outside and 
pinch a box o’ sardines, see? O, sartainly, sir, if us 
had bin caught us ’d got the cat — at the triangles, 
y’ know, and quite right too. No right to git pinchin’, 
none wotever.” Or it would be reminiscences of 
the cold: “Perishing weather it were, Mas’r Billy; 
I remembers wropping meself with newspapers in- 
side the last o’ me uniform. Gone to rags it was, 
to rags, sir, and me ammunition-boots gone to a 
pummy; I lorst parts o’ three toes, I did — chilblains 
it was, they sort o’ dropped off. Hurt crool they did 
when the thaw come.” “Inkerman? — want to hear 
about Inkerman? I remembers that pretty middlin’ 
well; Guy-Fawkes Day it were. Werry thick morn- 
in’. Fog shiftin’ about; one minute us could see 
the Rooshians acrost the valley on the move, next 
minute ye could hardly see your hand. The 
old Onety-Onth (East Wessex they calls ’em now, 
your corps, Mas’r Billy, wot I hopes to see you in 
when you ’ve eat enough puddin’) — they was drawn 


A Windfall and Its Results 319 

upon the flank of our battery. I see ’em formed two 
deep, I hear their C. 0. say, ‘Now, Onety-Onth, show 
these bee gunners how we do it, and be deed to ’em ! ’ 
Jus’ like that, Mas’r Billy. (He were a dead man 
twenty minutes later.) Then it was, ‘By y’ right, 
quick march!' and on they goes into the fog and nex’ 
minute we hears the word giv to fire, but, Lord bless 
ye, sir! not three muskets to the company ’d go off! 
That dratted fog had got into the primin’s. Back 
they falls and the front rank has to fix baynits and 
keep advancin’ at the double forty paces to their 
fronts, and then failin’ back at the slow, whilst the 
rear rank sat down on their tails (and wet, cold sittin’ 
it was, sir) and drew their charges, sponged their 
muskets out, snapped two caps, and recharged proper 
and dry, and then took front rank’s place and held 
the regiment’s ground till they was sponged out and 
ready. That was disci plyne, sir. The old Onety- 
Onth is a good regiment, sir. Muskets? Yes, that 
corps had n’t had their minny-rifles served out to 
’em then. They come along the day arter the battle. 
Werry much like everything else in that war, sir. 
O, sartainly, sir, so soon as their muskets ’d speak 
they kinder shifted they Rooshians quick. Yes, 
we did our bit; kep’ plumpin’ shot into the fog as 
fast as we could sponge out and recharge, never see 
nothin’ to lay at though, all day, leastwise, not till 
the artemoon, then the fog lifted, an’ the battery 
kinder got a look in.” 

Talks such as these determined the boy’s bent. 
He was all for the military life. Descriptions of 
other “life” (in the head and clothing), as to which 
the old campaigner spoke at large and feelingly, 
appealed to no personal experience nor touched his 


320 


Who Laughs Last 

imagination. The medal did; he was to have it 
when Gossett had done wi’ it. Billy has it to-day; 
and this was the manner of his getting it. 

Mr. Gossett, a bachelor all his time for the sake of 
the bright eyes of Mrs. Lambkin, lived by himself 
over the harness-room, having persistently declined 
offers of a cottage. He liked to be near his horses. 
The wife of the second gardener “did” for him. 
He was one of those rarely handy men who mended, 
and even made, for himself, and practised the French 
camp-cookery learnt from a red-trousered ally in 
the Crimea: a saving man was Gossett, who banked 
his pension, always putting the half of his wages by. 

It was at half-past five by the clock in the stable- 
yard turret on a dewy morning in the last week of 
April, whilst the thrushes were singing in the elms 
and the blackbirds fighting on the lawn, that the 
coachman left his bed. The tips of his right-hand 
fingers pricked as if with pins-and-needles ; he rubbed 
them without effect, but thought little of it, shaved, 
although with difficulty, for the hand felt numb and 
coldish, dressed, and went about his duties. At ten 
o’clock he was at the bank with his master. At eleven 
his master came forth, got in, saying “Home,” and 
the trouble began. It was in North Street, as Mr. 
Winterbourne afterwards remembered, that he heard 
the driver of some other vehicle remonstrating with 
his coachman. At the turning into the Archerfield 
Road he caught his breath rather quickly, for Gos- 
sett had shaved the wheel of a standing water-cart. 
This was not Gossett’s usual driving, yet he with- 
drew his hand from the check-string; it does not do 
to remonstrate with a valued old servant for the first 
fault. At the Hornbeams lodge the brougham turned 


A Windfall and Its Results 321 


abruptly and there was the unmistakable sensation of 
grazing a gate-post. The master glanced up, saw 
that his man was swaying upon the box, then the 
whip fell to the ground. It was time to pull the cord. 
The driver seemed unconscious of the action, but 
the wise old horses dropped to a walk and stood, 
aware of something wrong. Mr. Winterbourne ob- 
served that the coachman made no offer to recover 
the whip. He opened the door and got out. 

“ Gossett!” 

The man mumbled one-sidedly. His master’s eyes 
were no longer of the best; he fixed his glasses and 
peered up at his old friend; the first look told him 
that that old friend’s driving was done with. The 
right eye glared, there was evidence of more than 
facial paralysis, the right hand hung; Gossett had 
had a stroke. Mr. Winterbourne recovered the whip 
and led the horses to the yard, sent the stableman to 
the garden for help, and had the invalid carried to 
a room in the Hall, where he could be more comfort- 
ably nursed than in his own cramped quarters. The 
leading doctor in Welbury was sent for, but there was 
nothing that science could do; the old soldier rallied 
on the second day, made signs that he wanted to 
see his master, signalled for writing materials, scrawled 
left-handedly with much deliberation the words 
“all for master wilbram,” dropped the pencil, 
and died in his employer’s presence. 

The death of the old affects the old ; it is a pointed 
reminder of their own mortality. Mr. Winterbourne 
was deeply touched. More, the loss of the only man 
whom he trusted to drive him curtailed his move- 
ments. He scarcely recognised himself, and passed 
slowly about his house and grounds considering the 


21 


322 


Who Laughs Last 

possibilities of the position. It was the day fol- 
lowing the death. He had sent no message to the 
bank. 

He knew by the sound that Sam’s motor was at 
the door, but went farther into the shrubbery. He 
wanted Sam, and knew it, but could not bring him- 
self to seek his counsel or assistance. 

The path he was following led to the stables. He 
heard the voice of his elder son raised in somewhat 
sharp remonstrance; at the next step the laurel walk 
turned and the owner of Hornbeams could see Sam- 
uel confronting a small, sharp-featured person who 
seemed to have been in the act of leaving the harness- 
room when addressed. It was Purkiss, a solicitor 
in the town, a self-made man, who banked with the 
National and Capital, a member of the Corporation 
who had made a name for himself by acute and, at 
times, successful criticism of Mr. Samuel Winter- 
bourne’s policy: who had made the mistake of hold- 
ing his censor too cheaply upon his first appearance 
and had never quite succeeded in placing him. Mr. 
Purkiss had municipal law at the tips of his fingers; 
he was credited with being one of the few men in 
Welbury who could take a rise out of Mr. Samuel. 
They did not love one another, but had never quar- 
relled. Mr. Purkiss, on principle, never quarrelled; 
to do so is to give oneself away, and the lawyer valued 
himself too highly for gratuitous generosity. 

"May I ask what you are doing in my father’s 
stables?” 

"Excuse me, Mr. Winterbourne, I have not entered 
your father’s stables.” 

"But I find you in the act of leaving them. ” 

"I beg your pardon, you are mistaken, I have 


A Windfall and Its Results 323 


paid a visit to the lodging of my — of the late James 
Gossett.” 

“Indeed! And what is your connection with my 
father’s coachman — and why could you not have 
asked my permission before — er — trespassing in this 
rather extraordinary manner?” 

“My dear sir, I had no idea that your permission 
was needed. I should have asked your father’s per- 
mission if I had thought it possible that my client 
had been living in this — er — style. I naturally sup- 
posed that he had a house, or, say, a cottage of his 
own. ...” 

“Possibly you did, Mr. Pur kiss, but why come 
at all?” 

“Because I was directed here. I was never upon 
these premises before, and whilst seeking for some- 
thing more extensive, I found my way upstairs, 
somewhat to my own surprise, I admit.” 

“I reciprocate your surprise, Mr. Purkiss; I re- 
gard your presence as an intrusion. I wish you a good 
afternoon. ” The speaker plainly expected that Mr. 
Purkiss would take his departure. Mr. Purkiss stood 
his ground very civilly. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Winterbourne!” 

“Excuse me, you seem to have failed to understand 
my meaning. I attempted to convey that I did not 
desire your further company. ” 

“That is a desire which I can reciprocate, Mr. 
Winterbourne; pray do not linger upon my ac- 
count. ” 

“Sir, you are offensive!” 

“Most unintentionally, I assure you. We seem to 
be at cross ” 

“Go at once, sir!” 


324 


Who Laughs Last 

“This is a pity! Really, you are acting in a ” 

“At once, sir! Must I call ?” 

“That would be distinctly unnecessary. I shall 
have to apply to Mr. Winterbourne before I — oh, 
here is your father. ” The lawyer raised his hat defer- 
entially and advanced to meet the venerable figure 
issuing from the ivied arch into the shrubbery. 

“Good afternoon, sir, my name is Pur kiss ” 

“I have heard of you by name, Mr. Purkiss; what 
can I do for you? Did I hear you saying that you 
are interested in my poor old servant Gossett?” 

“I am. He consulted me recently as to his will. 

I am co-executor with ’’ 

Samuel snorted and broke in: “Then why could 

you not say so at once, sir, instead of ” 

“Gently, Samuel, if you please. This gentleman 
spoke of his ‘client.’ ” 

“I didn’t hear him, he ” 

“But I did. Now, sir, you are quite within your 
rights. You expected a separate residence, cottage, 
lodge, or something, did not you? Naturally. The 
poor fellow never would accept one. He was single, 
had no nieces, or sisters, or any relations that he 
knew of, and lived in this humble way because it 
gave him less trouble, I believe. As his executor 
you are welcome. I had not thought of him as likely 
to have made a will, I confess, and had taken upon 
myself to order the funeral. The body is lying in 
my house. We had arranged for the day after to- 
morrow at noon. Will the time suit you? — and your 
co-executor? I think you spoke? — Don’t run away, 
Samuel, unless you wish to. You would like to know 
the time, I expect, and this will be final. ” 

Mr. Purkiss was responding to the dignified 


A Windfall and Its Results 325 

affability of this address. He had only learnt of the 
decease of his client an hour or two before, and had 
cabbed from Welbury to look into matters. He 
thanked Mr. Winterbourne for the trouble taken, 
would be prepared to defray all expenses — (“Not 
necessary, my dear sir,” from Mr. Winterbourne). 
The time would suit himself; as to his colleague, he 
must ask Mr. Winterbourne to kindly give him the 
address of Lieutenant Wilbraham de Savigny-Conyers 
Winterbourne. 

“Hush, Sam! My son Wilbraham is residing 
abroad, Mr. Purkiss. Your co-executor is he? Are 
you aware that he is a minor? (God bless my soul! 
but he is of age — to-day is the boy’s birthday!) We 
are — you see — Of course I can give you his present 
address, if you wish it, but, may I ask, is it necessary? 
Could not he renounce? Cannot you act without 
him? I should suppose the estate is a trifling affair, 
eh?” 

“Not so very trifling, Mr. Winterbourne; at least, 
not trifling from my point of view; to yourself, and 
possibly to the lieutenant, it may be a bagatelle, 
but ” 

“Oh, come to the point, Purkiss,” interrupted Mr. 
Samuel. “You must know whether the presence of 
my brother is necessary or not. ” 

“Please, Sam!” 

“I have met Mr. Samuel before to-day, Mr. Winter- 
bourne; we quite understand one another. Yes, I 
really think that with an estate of this magnitude it 
would be advisable for both executors to act. Of 
course I am very much in your hands, sir,” bowing 
to the old banker, “but when — I must trust to your 
discretion — I may be slightly unprofessional in men- 


326 


Who Laughs Last 

tioning amounts before my colleague has been apprised 
or probate has been granted — but when an estate of 

ten thousands pounds is involved ” 

“Ten what ?" cried Samuel. “Absurd! Really, 

my good man !” 

“I am not your good man ” 

“But, I mean ” 

“And I mean what I say. Ten thousand ” 

“Grandmothers! You cannot have known Gos- 
sett. You must be labouring ” 

“Really, Samuel, really!” 

“Your son, Mr. Winterbourne, is pleased to be 
offensive,” said the little lawyer with the plaintive 
gentleness with which he knew how to get upon his 
opponent’s nerves. “I appeal to you, sir. In face 
of these repeated interruptions I really must request 
the honour of a private interview. This is your 
property, I understand. I am not aware that Mr. 
Samuel has any better status here than myself. I 
can vouch for it he has no interest under the will I 
propound. I drew it myself a month ago to-day. 
To the best of my belief it is in legal form and quite 
simple. I inspected the securities at my own bankers 
an hour ago. Under the circumstances perhaps Mr. 
Samuel will excuse me further catechising.” 

Mr. Samuel Winterbourne’s large, smooth face 
underwent a surprising change of expression. His 
treatment of the little lawyer may have been thought 
aggressive, overbearing even, but was merely his con- 
stitutional manner; he was no snob and would have 
behaved in similar fashion to the best-bred man in 
East Wessex had he encountered him in similar cir- 
cumstances. Abrupt by nature and habit, and but 
little softened by a home education and an early 


A Windfall and Its Results 327 

initiation to authority, he had acquired early, and 
had never seen occasion to modify, an address which 
in any one else would have been found intolerable. 
In Welbury it was recognised as “Sam’s way,” and 
excused upon the grounds of his good intentions, 
high character, and public services. Defects of breed- 
ing may be pardoned in a man who works like a horse, 
without even a horse’s inducements; who is always 
in a hurry, but never unpunctual, and who, seldom 
making a mistake of his own, is apt to show impatience 
with those of other men. All the same, Mr. Sam had 
the devil of a manner, as even his own side admitted ; 
the other side put up with it as best they might, and 
were secretly delighted at finding a person of inde- 
pendence, such as little Purkiss, whose imperturbable 
temper and irritating suavity of address penetrated 
the indurated self-complacency of the heavy-footed 
pachyderm. There are those who suffer fools gladly ; 
Mr. Samuel was incapable of enduring them upon 
any terms. If a man had anything worth hearing 
he would listen, but let him once suspect that the 
speaker was talking to mislead, or was a wind-bag, 
Mr. Samuel’s treatment of the offender was swift 
and drastic. Occasionally he was mistaken, and lost 
valuable information, or even made an enemy of one 
who would have assisted him. On the present oc- 
casion he had spoken too fast and had gone too far. 
While still of the opinion that this Purkiss fellow had 
deliberately made a fool of him, no sooner was he 
convinced of the truth of the man’s story than his 
demeanour altered. A man with the handling, even 
temporarily, of any such sum as had been mentioned, 
was worth preferential treatment. Call him not a 
snob, my good reader, but consider the man’s point 


328 


Who Laughs Last 


of view. Mr. Samuel was a specialist in finance. 
Money, as a power, had been his preoccupation since 
boyhood. Movements of capital, the passing, by 
inheritance or otherwise, of Large sums, appealed to 
him as the production, sale, or vicissitudes of a paint- 
ing appeal to the artist. Samuel no sooner realised 
the proximity of ten thousand pounds sterling than 
he, so to say, did obeisance to it, to the hitherto 
unsuspected Presence, to the Genius of Money. He 
hastened to make what he considered amends. 

“Offensive? My dear sir! Nothing further from 
my intentions; surprised, if you like, and naturally, 
but ” 

“Accepted, sir, not another word needed,” chirped 
the lawyer, always a quick sparrer. But the old man 
beneath the ivied arch was less easily appeased. Here 
at Hornbeams, upon his own property, a professional 
man, calling upon legal business, had been treated 
tactlessly, discourteously. He felt compelled to take 
it up, and would do the honours of his house in person. 
He interposed gravely. 

“Pardon me, Mr. Purkiss, I quite agree that under 
the circumstances the immediate presence of your 
co-executor is desirable. You see so too, Samuel? 
By-the-bye, as the poor fellow leaves no relatives, 
as he has often told me, would it be indiscreet to ask 
how the money is left?” 

“ I don’t think it can do any harm to tell you gentle- 
men in confidence that Lieutenant Winterbourne 
comes in for the lot,” replied Purkiss, enjoying the 
sensation he caused. 

Both father and son received this communication 
in silence. To the elder, viewed in the light of that 
painfully-scrawled memorandum (regarded as so 


A Windfall and Its Results 329 


pathetically trivial at the time!) it was at any rate 
comprehensible. He knew, too, the strong bond of 
loyal friendship, vassalship, call it how you will, 
which had subsisted between the old gunner and the 
young soldier. To Samuel the thing was incompre- 
hensible. But it certainly created a new situation. 
Wilbraham as a moneyed man, Wilbraham, no longer a 
minor, and with ten thousand pounds (less estate 
duty) to squander or to invest, was a person to be 
propitiated, warned, guided, advised. He had not 
specifically replied to his father’s question, not sharing 
his opinion that the occasion, as he then understood 
it, justified any relaxation of the term of exile orig- 
inally fixed. To have dissented in the presence of 
this Purkiss would have exposed family disagree- 
ment to the eyes of a stranger. He had reserved 
his right to veto the proposition later. But this new 
fact had altered the position. 

“Certainly Wilbraham must return immediately. 
I will write to him at once, giving permission. ’’ 

“You will kindly leave it to me, ” said the old man 
with curt dignity; he had followed his son’s mental 
processes, and turning to the lawyer addressed him 
with that deferential condescension which sorts so 
well with grey hairs and assured position, and which 
any man can accept without loss of self-respect, 
desiring his company at his afternoon tea-table. 

Mr. Purkiss accepted with secret pleasure an hon- 
our to which he had never aspired. He passed the 
gate, Mr. Winterbourne courteously holding it open 
for him and closing it behind upon his son, who, 
assuming that his belated acceptance of his father’s 
suggestion amounted to reconcilement, had moved 
as if to include himself in the invitation. 


330 


Who Laughs Last 

He bent his head in proud submission, seeing in 
the slight only one more confirmatory touch to the 
growing picture of senile decay. “Regrettable, 
very! Such a fine man as he has been in his time! 
Well, it is what we must all come to, I suppose, 
though, for myself, I could wish that I might be spared 
the years when a man makes an exhibition of himself 
and thoughtlessly gives annoyance to his friends.’ ' 

Mr. Purkiss, sugaring his tea, heard the motor 
start; he was aware that Masson, Colquhon & Bran- 
cepeth of Southampton Row were the solicitors for 
the bank, and doubted if any local man of his ow r n 
profession had taken tea in that room for thirty years. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


BILLY NEGOTIATES 

O LD Bemardina’s round shoulders and walnut 
face moved silently about the table, replacing 
plates. “Say what you like,” grunted Pennegwent 
into his beard, “the woman don’t understand a word 
of English, and none too much French, does she, 
Winterbourne?” 

Billy nodded confirmatorily to Masson, who was 
thoughtfully playing with his bread. 

“Thank you, it wasn’t that, but really, Winter- 
bourne here has not left us two trustees much to 
talk about, eh, Pennegwent?” 

“Most amazing! The fellow has the devil’s own 
luck! He finds everything he goes to look for, and 
things he isn ’t looking for tumble into his mouth. 
No ball will hit him nor any knife stick into him. 
Devil of a fellow, Masson; sad loss to the army. 
I should judge it a record for twenty-four hours, 
eh? Here, don’t run away, young man, you think 
I ’m smoking you (‘rotting’ is the word now, I believe). 
But I ’m not. I simply am sitting and gasping all 
my time since I heard the news. You have stuffed 
enough action into one day to last you for the rest 
of your natural life. And brought the thing off so 
neatly!” 


33i 


332 


Who Laughs Last 

“ But I had nothing to do with it. What else could 
I have done? You cannot lay it to me, for once I 
had Mrs. Winterbourne’s address the game was out 
of my hands; it was like losing the attack at chess, 
and being marched about all over the board , 1 check!' 
1 check!' 'check!' you know, with never a breathing- 
time to get one in. ” The boy was aware of a novel 
scrutiny in the eyes of the old men, a new note in 
their voices when they addressed him. “What 
can I do for you in the morning? ’’ he asked of Masson. 
The old lawyer looked him over with kindly interest. 
“Take that beard off and get into your English 
clothes for one thing, Winterbourne; and come into 
St. Lopez with me for another. For the rest, I am 
inclined to think I had better go by your advice.” 

Billy laughed. 

There was a good deal in his day’s work that he 
had not told his friends. The nick in the rim of his 
ear had called for explanation, but the incident had 
been cut to its most modest proportions. That 
preposterous offer from the American seemed hardly 
worth dilating upon; nor his gift of a hundred pounds 
to Mrs. Wentworth. What was the use of talking 
about such things? He had just had to do it. “You 
can’t leave an Englishwoman, even of that sort, 
sitting on the floor in hysterics without a sou in the 
house, can you? Well, then. ...” That is how his 
action appeared to himself. When Masson got the 
tale later from the ladies his respect for the boy did 
not diminish. The undesirable Mrs. Wentworth was 
gone, and had taken her departure with less clamour 
and scandal than usually attend the going of her sort. 
She would probably turn up again, and might need 
judicious, and even generous treatment; but for the 


Billy Negotiates 333 

moment, thanks to Billy, she, at any rate, was out 
of the picture. 

In one respect her absence was hampering. How 
was the death of her husband to be proved? And 
here again, although not at that little causerie & trois 
around the table of Major Pennegwent, but during 
the discussions of the following day, Billy’s sound 
commonsense cut its way through conventions to 
a satisfactory solution. 

‘‘How would it do, sir, to buy up that Farintosh 
fellow? He was on the spot, he saw the body, and 
knew the man, you know (had had one or two good 
old rows with him, from all accounts); I think we 
heard at the Casa Bolivar that he had been arrested 
for trying to pass a forged cheque. Now, unless 
the amount is very large, how would it do to meet 
that cheque and set if off against his what-d’ye-call- 
’em?” (Affidavit as to the death of Mr. Cornwallis 
Wentworth was what the boy meant, and Masson 
so understood him.) 

“Compounding a felony,” remarked the lawyer, 
sententiously. 

“How so, sir? As I understand it, they arrested 
the sweep for trying to cash a cheque drawn by Mr. 
Wentworth. So far poor Wentworth has not shown 
up to deny the signature. He is thought to be dead 
and buried, but of the two people who could tell 
the truth about him, one has run away, and the other 
is under arrest, and naturally will not say what would 
tell against himself. If you will excuse my saying 
so, I don’t think we have the whip-hand of this 
Farintosh; it rather looks as if he had the bulge on 
us. They will keep him in quod as long as they can 
upon the chance of Mr. Wentworth turning up, but, 


334 Who Laughs Last 

as we know, he will not turn up. Nor can we prove 
him dead.” 

“ Short of exhumation; and I hear they bury in 
quicklime,” said Masson, rubbing his chin. “Sorry 
I interrupted, Winterbourne, please continue.” 

“All I meant was that sooner or later they must 
drop the charge, and then out comes Farintosh, and 
away he skips. And where do we come in?” 

“Oh, shocking affair that would be,” said Masson. 
“Most tedious; it may be twenty years before the 
Court will presume the death. Really, I lean to your 
view — to take up the disputed cheque in exchange for 
certain information, shall we say?” 

But the man in the cells at the gendarmerie proved 
less amenable than Mr. Masson had hoped. 

“I am obliged to you gentlemen for your visit 
and sympathy. But, frankly, I don’t see in what way 
I can help you, nor am I going to ask any assistance 
from you. These good people are already findin* 
that they have made a stoopid mistake.” 

“Ahem,” murmured Masson, non-committally; 
the prisoner glared. 

“I don’t know what you mean by that, sir! If 
the signature is informal, surely the signatory could 
have been traced by this time, and would have come 
forward, eh, and prosecuted, eh?” 

“Unless he happened to be dead, sir,” riposted 
Masson. 

“In which case, sir, let them prove his death. My 
friend Mr. Cornwallis Wentworth is a well-known 
man, member of a long-established firm, bank a 
hundred years old or more, nothing easier than to 
trace a man of that stamp, sir. So I think I may 
say that in default of a prosecutor I shall be set at 


335 


Billy Negotiates 

liberty to-morrow, eh? And shall then proceed 
with my action for false imprisonment, or whatever 
the name of the thing is in this benighted country, 
eh?” 

“Well, Mr. Winterbourne,” said Masson, rising 
as if to go, “we must get at what we want through 
others, and by the ordinary means. You were not 
the only person present at the death of Mr. Went- 
worth, Major — ” 

“Eh? what? But I deny that — I mean I deny 
I was present, or that my poor friend is dead!” 

“Your ‘poor’ friend? ” 

“Sir, you are inquisitorial! I decline to ” 

“Go slow, Major,” drawled Billy, with the long 
wooden face which he can slip on at need. “The 
woman has owned up. You can tell us your tale 
now. But do as you like.” 

“The woman? — the woman ?” 

“ Mrs. Wentworth, yes. If what she says is correct 
(and it can be tested by diggin’ — y’ know what I 
mean) you are in Queer Street, Major. We don’t 
want to put her in the box, but ” 

“Where is Mrs. Wentworth, sir?” 

“That is asking, Major; she is no longer at the 
Casa Bolivar, if that is what you mean. We have 
heard what she has to say about this, and she is 
temporarily in funds, we have seen to that, so you 
need be under no ” 

“Con-found you, sir! Do you mean to say ?” 

“Nothing more, Major. I’ve said enough. Ex- 
cept that my name is Winterbourne — ‘Wentworth 
& Winterbourne,’ y’ know, one of that lot. I am 
taking a little interest in this case, and am over 
here to see it through. Now, it is your turn to talk. ” 


336 


Who Laughs Last 

“Well,” resumed the Farintosh, after a thought- 
ful review of his chances, “supposing I did make 
affidavit that I was present at the death of my friend 
(I am putting a purely supposititious case, you must 
understand, no more ) — what would you do ?” 

“Meet the cheque for you,” said Billy, Masson 
meanwhile watching the young entry work with 
silent relish. (“What a boy it is!”) 

“Not good enough. No, I’ll take my chances. 
To be turned adrift on the Riviera without a louis, 
and the season over, and the English gone, would be 
h — 1. Try again.” 

“You mean you must have funds to join her at 
Ostend . . . ?” 

“Certainly, a hundred down.” 

“If she were going to Ostend,” continued Billy, 
drearily, looking at the wall above the man’s head. 

“Confound you again, sir! You are playing with 
my feelings!” 

“Suppose you begin playing with pen and ink, 
Major Farintosh. Come, here is the affidavit — (I 
think you have it, sir?) We have seen the grave and 
the sexton and all that; all we want is your name 
to this — on oath, of course, as my friend reminds 
me. As for the rest, you may leave yourself in our 
hands. We are not sweeps, Major. We will give 
you the lady’s address and money enough to get 
to her and make a fresh start of it. That ’s better, 
give the thing a rap and the ink will come. Put 
your name just there.” 

“Your son has great abilities, Mrs. Winterbourne; 
my friend Mr. Wilbraham should have been a 
solicitor.” 


337 


Billy Negotiates 

“He should have been a soldier, Mr. Masson; 
if ever I get that Sam within four walls !” 

“You will make mischief, Mrs. Winterbourne.” 
The lady laughed. 

“And oh, Mr. Masson, do you know that whilst 
you were at Monte Carlo an American called in- 
quiring for Billy. It seems my son did him a service 
but would accept nothing from him (just Billy’s way). 
But he is so impressed and interested that, well, he 
wanted to know all about him. He stopped half an 
hour, a Mr. Schlinck, an extraordinary person, most 
unconventional, a little earthquake of a man, looks 
at you silently for ten seconds, sucks his teeth, 
and then goes for you. He had seen Billy handing 
me into a motor-car yesterday. So you were suc- 
cessful? And have made arrangements to send 
the body to England? You don’t happen to have 
seen Billy? He and the Wentworth girl are off some- 
where, I expect. It is only natural. A telegram? — 
for Winterbourne, for me of course. No! this is for 
Billy; it is redirected from Callouris. This is news, 
his father wants him to return. ‘Letter following.’ 
Now, isn’t that too bad? Just like my husband! 
No sooner have Billy and I got together than he 
cuts in!” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


FAREWELL TO THE MIDI 

1 DON’T quite see why Sam need have telegraphed, 
do you, Mr. Masson? The pater’s letter was on 
the way, and there is no tearing hurry about taking 
this up, is there?” 

Masson knew of none, but a legacy of ten thousand 
does n’t fall in every day, and if Billy did n’t know 
anything about his co-executor it was just as well 
to make his acquaintance and start even. “Still,” 
the lawyer went on, “I think we might travel home- 
ward in company, and with the ladies, as they seem 
to wish, eh?” Billy gravely assented. “And as 
we are here at Callouris settling up, what say you 
to making a morning of it at this CMteau Mont- 
souris?” 

It came off. Billy led the old ornithologist to 
the white silent ruin, doing the honours of the place, 
putting his guest in the best points of view for seeing 
its wild bird-life, and enjoyed, as he had never en- 
joyed his lonely vigils, the visible delight of his friend, 
his tense, quivering enthusiasm when the small red 
falcons dipped and flickered among the battlements. 

“Lesser kestrel without the least doubt. A new 
bird for me, Winterbourne! I suppose it would not 
be possible to get a hand into that hole ; it overhangs 
338 


Farewell to the Midi 


339 


so? Now, don’t attempt anything risky on my ac- 
count, if you please ! ” The older man held his breath 
as the boy sidled and hitched himself from point to 
point, clung, and sounded the crevice (“one egg only, 
sir!”) and came down by slow and cautious descents 
from one foothold to the next. Then did Masson, 
kneeling upon the short turf, crow and exult over the 
treasure like a schoolboy. No day is perfect. The 
wall-creepers, capriciously, shyly on view, had not 
begun breeding. 

Next day the party started for home. Pennegwent 
felt the parting more than he cared to admit to 
himself. 

“ Look here, Masson, if ever I did make up my mind 
to have another look at England — (I never shall, 
but if I ever did) — it would be to see that fellow again 
(and yourself, of course) . There is quality about him. 
I — ” The rest of the encomium rumbled down into 
his beard. “And, Masson, I say, don’t get bothering 
to write me anything about that fool picture-show; 
I know all there is, or ever will be, to tell before the 
silly doors are opened. ” The train began to move. 
The sun-bleached widewake came off and was swung 
low in courtly farewells to the travellers: the two 
handsome, middle-aged women; the charming girl, 
whose vivid colouring had drawn the eye of the old 
artist to a ward whom he had found only to lose; 
and the boy and man, his friends. Growling to 
himself like a surly mastiff for that as fast as you 
get to like a fellow off he goes and leaves you more 
lonely than you were before you discovered him, 
the man returned from the junction by the crawling 
branch-line to Callouris and his sun-baked chateau. 

“What a picturesque head! How characteristic ! ” 


340 


Who Laughs Last 

said Marion Bohun. “ If he paints up to his appear- 
ance his pictures will be old masters whilst upon 
the easel. ” 

“We shall never see that old soul again, I should 
think, ” said Ad&la. 

“I shall; he was awfully good to me, and if he 
won’t come I shall look him up,’’ said Billy. “And 
now, Miss Wentworth, please understand that you 
are not to do one thing for yourself. This return 
journey is your beanfeast. My mother and I and 
the lot of us are going to spoil you! That ’s so, is n’t 
it, Mr. Masson?” 

They all laughed; Mrs. Winterbourne exchanged 
amused glances with Marion : both felt that, whether 
he knew it or not, the young gentleman had found 
his feet where a woman was concerned and acquired 
an unembarrassed manner. He had not been knocked 
about for five weeks by all sorts and conditions of 
humanity in vain. His mother, who had seen no- 
thing of him for four months, listened to him with 
interest; he spoke as a man speaks who has had time 
to think questions out for himself, and no longer as 
a subaltern accepting the canons of his mess. His 
eyes were altered; they were like the eyes of a sailor. 

Millicent found her companions delightful and won- 
derful, and herself with much leeway to make up. 
A month in a dark room, they say, may be good for 
the optic nerve, but ordinary daylight seems rather 
strong during the first week of liberty. The girl 
followed general conversation with eyes and ears, 
but when she would have made an observation the 
topic had gone forward whilst she sought for the 
word. 

“She is enormously happy, my dear,” said Marion 


Farewell to the Midi 


34i 


to Actela in the corridor, whither the ladies had re- 
tired to leave the youngsters in chat, whilst Masson 
slept in his corner, or pretended to sleep. “Do you 
know, I don’t think her father was as much to her 
since his second marriage as she wishes us, and her- 
self, to believe. The steady nagging of a jealous 
woman has been wedging them apart until this final 
separation is not such a wrench as it would have 
been two years back. ” 

“I dare say. I don’t remember ever meeting the 
man. And, my dear, I have got Mr. Masson to 
consent to breaking the journey at Paris; for the 
child’s sake, you know. She is not fit for a through 
run; her hardships have shaken her nerves a little, 
and I must get some shopping done before I return 
to England.” 

Paris in May may be delightful or the reverse. 
Neither Millicent nor Billy complained of it upon 
that occasion. The girl was permitted to accompany 
him to the Louvre for her especial edification and to 
the Jardin des Plantes for his. I have never heard 
either of them refer to any one thing that they saw. 
He brought her back tired but happy. 

The door between Mrs. Bohun’s and Millicent’s 
rooms stood open : the ladies were dressing for dinner, 
conversing disconnectedly upon the doings of the 
day. 

“You should have been with us at Le Printemps, 
child — oh, the most original ideas! We ran through 
the deuil department. I picked up some black silk 
Maltese for you, but you could not wait on here for 
your mourning. We will take Jay’s the day after 
getting home.” 

“Yes? How kind!” replied the girl, dreamily, 


342 


Who Laughs Last 

preoccupied with impressions more intimate than 
the purchase of black frocks. 

Marion, so to say, cocked an ear. 

“ And had you a good time?” 

“Can you ask? My first walk for six weeks. For 
I don’t count limping up and down flights of stone 
stairs in search of people who turned out to be dead, 
or had left for England (and upon an empty stomach 
too!). This has been the day of my life! I shall 
never forget it — Paris, I mean.” 

Marion smiled at herself in the glass, holding a 
coil of hair in suspense whilst she tilted her chin 
to get the reflection of another head, a rosy young 
cheek, a milk-white arm wielding a brush with slow 
strokes upon heavy chestnut tresses. 

“And ‘The Boy,’ was he ‘jolly’?” “Jolly Boy” 
was the lady’s private name for her friend’s son; 
why, Heaven knows! Billy’s sedate gravity, the 
aplomb of thirty, rather than the briskness of twenty- 
one, is inadequately suggested by the soubriquet. 

“Mr. Winterbourne was quite nice.” 

The listener’s mouth rounded, then its corners 
turned up in silent, good-natured derision. (“Mr. 
What ? — quite nice ? — Nous sommes touchees, ma 
ch6rie! But, mum’s the word! Oh, yes, very much 
so, at this stage.”) Her hands fell to her lap and 
lay idle; with head askew she could watch, peering 
beneath the reflection of her own ear, the measured 
movements, the unconscious grace of that arm and 
wrist, and see the light from the electric glancing 
over the burnished sheaves of hair. 

“What a shame that I never had a child! It 
would have made a different thing of life to have 
borne, and nursed, and bathed, and played with 


Farewell to the Midi 


343 


(yes, and squabbled with) this creature! I feel 
somehow defrauded that I ’ve only known her two 
years out of her twenty-one, and now just as I am 
winning my way into her confidence, pff ! off she will 
trot to Ad&la’s boy! That is life! All there is in it! 
Let me enjoy her while I have her!” She swept 
into her friend’s room, dropped upon her knees be- 
hind her chair, enfolding the shining head and white 
arms in a comprehensive embrace. There was a 
low, startled laugh of surrender, and then the unre- 
luctant girl was drawn down and mastered, whilst 
the woman gave a loose to the baulked mother- 
instincts of her nature. Both her hands were full 
and content, realising contours and textures, their 
finger-tips rising and falling, kneading the warm soft- 
ness, as a cat kneads the knee upon which it knows 
itself welcome, but the mouth hungered for love. 
Nuzzling luxuriously beneath the lace margin of the 
short sleeve Marion buried her whole face in the odor- 
ous whiteness of shoulder and upper arm, inhaling 
its fine human aroma. 11 Behold the smell of my son 
is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed /” 
said Isaac of old. Tell me, have youth, and health, 
and beauty lost their charm for the heart whose own 
day lies behind it ? 

“Oh, but I am happy!” murmured Millicent, 
expanding in love’s presence as a flower opens to the 
sun. Marion understood and was too wise to plumb 
the sources of this new and perfect happiness. 

At Amiens a day was devoted to the cathedral. 
The elder ladies were content with the glories of nave 
and apse as seen from the pavement, Mr. Masson 
discovering curious and entertaining knowledge of 
architecture and history. Millicent and Billy, mean- 


344 


Who Laughs Last 

while, climbed the towers and the fl&che, explored 
the triforium arcades, finding in the coloured glass 
of the great north transept window a nine-feet-high 
Sanctus Nebuchadnezzar! which, mutually supported, 
they studied from a dizzy standpoint, happily 
unconscious of tolerant smiles a hundred feet below. 

At Charing Cross the party broke up. Mr. Masson, 
after making appointments to discuss the legal busi- 
ness connected with the position created by the death 
of Mr. Cornwallis Wentworth, made his farewells 
to the ladies. “I have to thank you for a pleasant 
journey. I left home full of anxieties, I return with 
a mind at rest. No, you must not pity me for my 
supposed waste of time ; I have found pleasure where 
I anticipated worries. I told my partners not to 
expect me for a fortnight, but, thanks to Mr. Win- 
terbourne, I am back within nine days. ” 

To Billy it was: “I don’t know what your engage- 
ments will be, but I hope you will week-end with me 
as soon as you can break away. There are my eggs 
to look through, and your own to arrange about. 
Kathleen will be glad to see you if I am not!” 

A month earlier this would have been attraction 
irresistible, but within those weeks so much had 
befallen, and so many and such engrossing interests 
had pressed for recognition, that the boy, to his own 
surprise, felt that, if needful, the mare must be turned 
into the bay of a barn for the summer without her 
former owner crossing her again. He would have 
liked to have repurchased her, but felt the position 
delicate. “I do not know whether he bought her 
for his own sake or for mine. ” It would want think- 
ing over, and all the summer lay before him. To 
Millicent he said hurriedly that it was only fifteen 


Farewell to the Midi 


345 


miles between the houses, and he supposed he would 
be getting something to hack, so if he looked in for 
lunch some day she need not be too surprised, eh? 

The banality of last words ! And what we remem- 
ber too late and wish we had said when the taxi has 
started! 


CHAPTER XXIX 


PROMOTION 

A FORTNIGHT had passed since Billy s return 
to his father’s roof. 

Mr. Samuel was upon Weibury platform when the 
lawyer stepped from the carriage. “My car is here: 
I will drive you to Hornbeams. Glad to have the 
opportunity of a chat. I suppose you have no idea 
what my father has called us into counsel for? These 
sudden demands upon one’s time are wearing. I 
cannot imagine what he wants now. I seldom see 
him. As you know, since his coachman’s death he 
rarely leaves his grounds. My brother has twice 
got him into a pony-carriage. He never writes to 
me. I regard this growing secretiveness as a sign, 
you know. . . . Prefer the window up? Oh, yes, 
certainly I received your letter. Did I not acknow- 
ledge it? Very remiss of me! I detest pleading my 
many engagements; a man should not undertake a 
single office more than he can carry, but it is a fact, 
that what with this Sewage Farm suit, and other 
public business, I have felt myself somewhat pressed 
of late. I apologise. To get back to my late part- 
ner’s will. Of course the provision is in accordance 
with the partnership deed. Poor Wentworth was 
within his rights, but I cannot say that I had ever 
346 


Promotion 


347 


contemplated the possibility of half his capital being 
paid out within three months of probate; but there 
it stands, and of course you, as executor, must carry 
out the provisions and put the money into Trustee 
stocks. The second half in a year’s time will present 
no difficulties. How is Miss Wentworth? . . . Glad 
to hear it. . . . What arrangements will you make 
for her? Quite a child, is n’t she? Of age? I had 
no idea! How time flies! An orphan, too! Very 
sad. I never knew anything about the second Mrs. 
Wentworth. Someone did say that it was not a pru- 
dent step. Personally I have no opinion of second 
marriages. My brother? I assure you I have not 
seen him since his return. I daresay he will be some- 
where about the place. I will have him sent for if 
you would like to see him before you leave. I sup- 
pose you know nothing of his life abroad? I think 
we kept him too short to permit of his getting into 
mischief. I trust the lesson has not been lost upon 
him. This sudden accession of fortune is risky, 
very. I await events. I rather expected to have 
him coming to me to advise investments, but he has 
apparently formed plans of his own. It relieves me 
of an unwelcome responsibility. Here we are.” 

Mr. Samuel had talked incessantly during the run. 
Such questions as he had put had been interrogative 
in form rather than in fact; he had awaited no re- 
plies. Masson, indeed, had not opened his lips. 

They were before their time and were shown into 
the empty library, where the afternoon sun was put- 
ting out an unnecessary fire. Mr. Abraham Winter- 
bourne, leaning upon the arm of his younger son, 
came in from the garden, shook hands warmly with 
Masson, gave two tepid fingers to Samuel, and 


34 8 


Who Laughs Last 

bade both be seated. Billy remained behind his 
father’s chair until motioned to one beside him. He 
and the lawyer had greeted one another with warmth, 
which momentarily surprised Mr. Samuel ; but he had 
other things to think about. He glanced at his watch. 

“ I have n’t the faintest idea what this is all about, 
father. Will it take long? Is it family matters? 
The bank? ” He looked across at his younger brother. 
“Then had not we better discuss in private? Perhaps 

Wilbraham would not mind ’’ 

“Billy will stay where he is,” said the old man, 
firmly. 

“ Of course, if you wish it ; I was only thinking it will 

bore him. He can’t be expected to understand ” 

“ Billy will hear nothing that he can’t understand. 
Now, Masson!” 

The lawyer drew from his black bag a bundle of 
papers, among them a long blue envelope. “Your 
father, Mr. Samuel, consulted me about a month 
since upon some matters which have engrossed his 
attention for some time past. In the first place, he 
is proposing to transfer to yourself and Mr. Wil- 
braham considerable sums by deeds of gift ” 

“It saves estate-duty,” interjected Samuel, nod- 
ding his agreement with the arrangement, and with- 
holding criticism upon the wisdom of increasing the 
temptations to which sudden affluence must already 
have subjected his brother. 

“ — on certain conditions,” pursued the lawyer, 
completing an unfinished sentence. “Thus I am 
instructed to say that Mr. Winterbourne is prepared 
to make over to each of you fifty thousand pounds 
upon the peaceable conclusion of the succeeding 
business.” 


Promotion 


349 

“Peaceable? I don’t understand you. But go 
on ; so far very generous and proper. ” 

“Thank you, Sam. Go on, Masson.” 

“Leaving then these intentions in abeyance for the 
moment, I will venture to call your attention, Mr. 
Samuel, to the Partnership Deed.” 

“Thanks. Know all about it. Have a copy in 
private safe at bank.” 

“I am obliged to you. There will therefore be 
no occasion to read most of the document. ” 

“Not the slightest, or any of it.” 

“The principal provisions do not concern us to- 
day. It is only with the supplementary clause which 
I think it is the custom of the House to call the ‘Codicil 
Clause’ that we need deal. As you know, the Head 
of the Concern for the time being, for the past forty 
years or so, has had power to introduce a new partner 
to the Concern at any time, with or without permis- 
sion from his colleagues. It was under this clause 
that your father, Mr. Samuel, was introduced 


Mr. Samuel Winterbourne’s face had grown tense 
with curbed impatience. 

“Need we go into ancient history, father? Or, 
if it be needful to refresh our minds with it, why 
keep Wilbraham from enjoying himself — er — in the 
gardens, or stables, or wherever he likes?” 

“Go on, Masson, he’ll see presently. Sit down, 
Billy.” 

“By virtue of this clause, Mr. Samuel, your father 
decides that the time has come to introduce to the 
firm your brother, Mr. Wilbraham. ” 

“Impossible!” 

“If you will be pleased to read this, Mr. Samuel,” 


350 


Who Laughs Last 

pursued the lawyer, passing a paper across the table, 
“you will find it a copy of a deed of admission, a 
counterpart of those executed by the late Mr. Mor- 
daunt when admitting your father, and by your father 
when admitting yourself. ” 

“I won’t look at it! I won’t touch it!” said Mr. 
Samuel, hastily, pushing back his chair and waving 
away the _ proffered paper. “This is — this is — I 
hesitate to say — I refrain from characterising what I 
consider amazing, this absurd (a&so-lutely absurd!) 
act of yours to be, father!” 

“Then don’t,” said the old man, dryly. “Go on, 
Masson. ” 

“But it is not legal, the boy wasn’t of age!” 

“ Pardon me, it is dated subsequently to his twenty- 

first birthday ” 

“But you can’t ” 

“ I have done it, Sam. ” 

“But you dare not ” 

“It is done!" 

Mr. Samuel Winterbourne was one of the strong- 
willed men. He did not find it easy to concede to 
circumstances, still less to give way to a fellow-crea- 
ture. To submit upon any terms was distressing, 
to yield gracefully was impossible. He arose, tight- 
lipped and with pinched, white nostrils, and found 
his way out through the French window to the sunny 
garden, looking at the ground before him as he went, 
but seeing nothing. 

The three whom he left sat in silence for a while. 
Masson sniffed. 

“Shall I try him? He certainly takes it hardly.” 
“Explain the alternative. Yes, go to him. He 
will listen to you. ” 


Promotion 


35i 


One of the great achievements of the horologist 
is the escapement. It is based upon the fundamental 
truth that to make a thing, or a man, go at all, it, or 
he, must have not merely sufficient, but surplus 
energy, for which outlet must be provided. Whether 
a watch, or a man, is “good” depends in the last 
resort upon the means adopted for carrying off the 
extra force which would, if secreted, make either un- 
trustworthy companions. The late Prince Bismarck 
used to deplete himself by hammering his knuckles 
raw against a door. Nicholas I. of Russia would tear 
a displeasing dispatch with his teeth, or chevy an 
attach^ down a Paris corridor with a boot- jack. An 
acquaintance has confessed to the writer that a cer- 
tain yew walk in his garden has been the unshocked 
recipient of many five minutes* bursts of profanity. 
(“I let it off there and come indoors feeling like new 
milk, y’ know. ”) It may be admitted that bad lan- 
guage is a most effective outlet for those who can con- 
descend to it. Mr. Samuel Winterbourne could not. 
In the course of his life he had caused much swearing 
but never was known to have sworn. 

Masson could see him at the bottom of the lawn, 
pacing around a deodar, kicking his toes before him 
as he went, and judged it best to intercept rather 
than to pursue. At his first circuit he was not to be 
spoken to and waved his friend away ; at his second 
— and the fact that he kept to his orbit was sympto- 
matic — he half halted, but moved on; at his third 
it was “Well, what is it?” 

The lawyer had not been in practice for forty years 
without discovering that middle-aged and elderly 
men of high position and blameless character can 
upon occasion let themselves go and behave 


352 Who Laughs Last 

like rude little boys. He was not in the least 
daunted. 

“Let us talk this over together, Mr. Samuel.” 

The great man was deeply, nay, painfully moved. 

1 ‘ Monstrous ! Unjust ! Cruel ! After all my years 
of service!” he exclaimed in a shaken voice, but falling 
into step. “And in the presence of that young cub, 
too ! Such a want of respect to my feelings ! ’ ’ People 
who are forever hurting the susceptibilities of others 
are the first to resent slights to their own. Mr. 
Masson nodded. 

“That is why I have come to you. It occurred to 
me, and to your father, too, that you would prefer 
to hear the rest of ” 

1 ‘ The rest ? Is there more ? * ’ 

“'Conditions,’ Mr. Samuel. You will remember 
the deed of gift was conditional. ” 

“Humph! That was the sugar on the pill, was 
it? And I am to swallow this young rascal with 
the fifty thousand, eh? Suppose I renounce the 
terms?” 

“In that case, Mr. Samuel, you would lose the con- 
sideration without releasing yourself from the obliga- 
tion. May I put it baldly? — as between old friends, 
who are also men of affairs? I should re-state the 
case thus. The deed admitting your brother to the 
firm is beyond your power to set aside. Yes!” for 
Samuel had snorted restively, “a provision which 
has been assented to by two partners, yourself and 
the late Mr. Wentworth, and under which you were 
admitted upon somewhat short notice, if I recall the 
circumstances, cannot be repudiated so easily as you 
appear to suppose. I must advise you that the admis- 
sion stands. ” 


Promotion 


353 


“His mind is obviously failing. I might dispute 
it upon that ground.” (Mr. Masson noted the 
“might.”) 

“You would fail in your contention, sir. If you 
observed the date it was signed after the meeting 
of the Welbury Council at which your father was 
presented with the honorary freedom of the borough. 
His speech in acknowledgment was admitted to be a 
model of taste. (I read it in your local paper at the 
time, and admired it myself.) It was said to have been 
quite extempore, and delivered with energy. Your 
father appears to have taken the deed to the Council 
Chamber in his pocket, and I find the names of the 
present Mayor and no less than five of the aldermen 
appended as witnesses. I need not ask you what 
would be the result of challenging these gentlemen to 
swear that Mr. Winterbourne was of infirm mental 
health upon that occasion. ” 

Mr. Samuel remained silent for some minutes. 
“What else have you to say to me? This is not all 
my father wishes me to know, I suppose? No, 
Masson, I am still unconvinced. I shall promise 
nothing — nothing ! What else ? ’ ’ 

“Mr. Samuel, I must say you are making the work 
of an old friend very difficult.” 

“I hardly recognise much of the old friend in your 
present action, Mr. Masson. I should have thought 
it your duty to myself — ” He stopped. 

“To have divulged to one client the proposed action 
of another? Or to have refused to assist the senior 
partner in Winterbournes to take the perfectly legal 
action by which you, yourself, benefited when last 
exercised? You are unjust to your reputation as a 
man of business, sir, as well as to me. But I will 


23 


354 Who Laughs Last 

do as you wish. Your father has executed a codicil 
to his will. ” 

“Never! When?” The man’s mind flew back 
to the precautions he had adopted; he had regarded 
himself as safe upon that side. 

“Fully a month since. I did not draft it, or advise 
him, but I am bound to say that what he showed me 
subsequently, I could assure him, irrespective of my 
own views as to its justice, or wisdom, was — a work- 
able instrument, good in law. By this codicil he leaves 
his property to his two sons in equal proportions; 
your share, Mr. Samuel, is made contingent upon your 
treatment of your brother during the first five years of 
your partnership. That is the gist of it. ” 

“But this is undue influence,” remonstrated the 
unfortunate legatee, to whom reaction against un- 
due influence naturally did not suggest itself as a 
cause of his father’s behaviour. 

“Whose influence do you allege, Mr. Samuel?” 
asked Masson, not unkindly. “Your brother was 
in France, sent there by your father. They did not 
correspond, I think. The codicil appears to have 
been drawn, or at any rate executed, at the bank; 
two of your clerks attest.” 

“The injustice of it!” exclaimed the mortified man 
in bitterness of spirit. “During a life of incessant 
work, devoted to — what you know (I make no claim, 
I don’t boast, I state mere fact) — during twenty 
years and more given to the service of my fellows 
I have never wilfully wronged another, nor, I trust, 
needlessly hurt another’s feelings. I have tried ear- 
nestly to do what I believed to be right, and now, see 
how I am requited! I am wounded in the house of 
my friend! I must say it is cruel! — most cruel!” 


Promotion 


355 


“I will ask you to believe that I have gone as far 
as I dared. Your father has surprised me. It is 
a return to an earlier manner, to the man whom I 
remember years since, before his illness. ” 

‘ * What unheard-of barbarity ! A gift of fifty thou- 
sand pounds dangled before me subject to my ‘peace- 
able’ assent to a most unjust (not to say iniquitous) 
exercise of his rights as senior partner; and a bequest, 
such as it may be, hung up until it shall be seen how 
I am able to endure the antics of a junior forced upon 
me at the point of the bayonet, whose behaviour is 
certain to be objectionable and may prove unendur- 
able. Great Heavens!” The speaker almost choked. 
Masson, pacing the grass beside him, gave him 
time. 

“He very well knows that I cannot fight him.” 

“He quite recognises that. The inner workings 
of an old established private bank must not be ex- 
posed and regulated in court. No. Then, if you 
are not able to fight (contest, let us call it), cannot 
you bring yourself to fall into line with a good grace? 
(I am speaking as one man of the world to another.) 
If I dared, I would express commiseration for you. 
I deeply sympathise with you. Knowing you both 
so well, and so long, Mr. Samuel, I am naturally not 
blind to the unusual force of character which is com- 
mon to you all. Your father is one of the clearest 
and strongest heads I ever encountered. Your mis- 
take, if I may express myself freely in this privacy, 
has been in miscalculating the reserve force still pre- 
sent in him. May I tell him that you see your way 
to satisfy his wishes?” The men paced the round 
thrice in silence, much hung in the balance. 

“You may. . . . There is no alternative. But 


356 


Who Laughs Last 

however I shall be able to work with, or endure the 
presence of, that egregious young ass, Wilbraham ” 

Mr. Masson, who had turned, preparatory to 
rejoining the party in the library, paused. 

“You have known me — how long? I am not 
exactly a fool! I mean that you have never found 
me impressionable? — emotional? You would listen 
with respect, say, to my judgment of a man. It 
would have some weight with you. I can read char- 
acter; you will at any rate grant that?” 

“Yes. Certainly. Oh, yes. What are you lead- 
ing up to?” 

“Your brother.” 

1 “You don’t know him. ” 

“Excuse me, it is you who do not know him. I 
have travelled fifteen hundred miles in his company; 
have walked with him, conversed with him, seen him 
under peculiarly trying circumstances, both here and 
abroad. We have corresponded regularly for some 
weeks. I think this gives me as good a right — as 
firm a basis, say, for the estimation of his capacities 
and character as I need, or am likely to get with 
regard to any young man. Oh, I know what you 
would say, I grant you the cheque, but, knowing more 
than either you or his father knew at the time, I find 
it a most innocent step aside. When a man takes a 
liberty with the signature of another does he usually 
accompany his draft with an explanatory letter and 
follow it up by a personal appearance at the bank of 
payment? Come, Mr. Samuel, that incident had 
better be buried in oblivion for the sake of all con- 
cerned. As I was about to say, I have formed a 
high opinion of your brother. He is a man of real 
ability. A fine young fellow. If he were not des- 


Promotion 


357 

tined for your bank I should try to secure him for 
my office. ” 

“You tell me this?” 

“I tell you this.” 

Mr. Samuel, tenacious in everything, was tenacious 
in his judgments of men. He had known Masson 
from days when, coming down to his father’s dinner- 
table with his tutor, his boyish hand had been taken 
in kindly sort by the trim, spare City solicitor, who 
even in his late twenties or early thirties had seemed 
“awfully old” to the youngster, but had hardly aged 
since. His father had grown stiff and slow, himself 
portly and deliberate, but the Londoner’s step and 
bearing were but little altered, his glance was still 
clear and quick. It was himself who had changed, 
but years had neither improved nor deteriorated an 
acquaintance based upon mutual respect rather than 
upon similarity of outlook and taste. He had long 
known that his father regarded this man as a friend 
rather than as a legal adviser. He, to whom capacity 
for friendship had been denied, whilst appreciating 
the lawyer, had never been drawn into intimacy. 
If Masson said a thing was so, in Samuel’s experience 
it always was so; if Masson advised a course, it 
was wise to take that course ; and now, perhaps from 
habit, he found himself able to accept from the lawyer 
what he would have hotly repudiated from any other 
man. To this convinced but temperate appreciation 
of Wilbraham, Samuel found himself listening with 
astonishment but not with scorn. After all, what 
did he know of his half-brother? They had seldom 
met, they had dissimilar tastes, traditions, acquaint- 
ances, upbringings. He disliked the boy, always had, 
and now, for the first time, realised that his aversion 


358 


Who Laughs Last 

was based upon prejudice. The young fellow had 
probably reciprocated his feelings, but had shown 
this rather by keeping out of his way than by any- 
thing covertly offensive. He might have been pre- 
mature in assuming incompatibility. Closer relations 
must be attempted, and at once; it was fortunate 
that the fellow was not the objectionable young fool 
that he had thought him. A person of marked 
ability and character! Masson vouched for him. 
He turned to Masson, inhaling deeply. “Let us 
go to them.” 

In the library, meanwhile, the old man sat looking 
into the dying fire, softly drumming upon the arm 
of his elbow-chair with pale, lean fingers. Billy, 
the new partner, totally unable to realise himself, 
and silently ill at ease at finding himself a cause of 
quarrel between men whose knowledge of the world 
and capacity for affairs overlapped his own at 
every point, held himself on the curb, too strange 
to the ground to move freely, a fox-hunter out of his 
country. 

“What are they doing?” asked the old man. 

“Taking their twentieth turn around the tree, sir. 
Oh, here they come!” He sucked in a lip and took 
a resolution. “May I say something — to you, I 
mean — now?” 

“Better leave it to me, boy.” 

“ I ’ll risk it. Look here, sir, this is a bit of a brick 
for Sam. Can’t you let him down a bit easier?” 

His father raised his face from the hearth and shot 
a sidelong glance of surprise. “Why? If it was his 
day he would n’t ” 

But Samuel was upon the threshold; Billy saw in 


Promotion 


359 


his father’s eye a look of settled dislike which pained 
him. He felt sorry for the man who had been so 
hard upon him; he began to long for reconciliation. 
Samuel stepped into the room and made straight 
for his half-brother with an air of ponderous effort. 
“Wilbraham, we must respect our father’s wishes. 
I concur in his plans with regard to you without re- 
serve. I repeat, without reserve. You have entered 
the Concern. It is a great occasion. I offer you my 
hand and congratulations. I hope, I trust, I intend, 
and shall make it my study, that we shall learn to 
work together harmoniously.” 

“ Thanks. That’s all right, and very kind, and 
I take it so, Samuel. Of course I know nothing of 
business absolutely, and shan’t be much use for a bit. 
I am afraid I shall want a lot of help, and teaching, 
and patience, and all that. Just let me watch you 
and pick it up. ” 

“That is right; quite good, very!” said the old 
man, gruffly. “Stick to it, and you will pick it up. 
You have brains, Billy. Sam, Billy has brains; ask 
Masson. ” 

“I have asked Masson, and have heard a most 
encouraging account. Very gratifying. When shall 
he start? To-morrow morning at nine-thirty. By 
the way, this must be gazetted. ” 

“Tea is served in the drawing-room, sir,” said 
the maid at the door. 

So the crisis was over. Billy was feeling himself, 
so to speak, for broken bones, and though dizzy and 
breathless was finding himself whole; otherwise his 
sensations were much as they had been after a tre- 
mendous and complicated mucker sustained on the 
opening day of the season, when Kathleen, asked to 


360 


Who Laughs Last 

do the impossible, had risen to the occasion through 
sheer faith in her pilot amid smashed rails, a crushed 
hat, a broken girth, and several uncharted constel- 
lations. 


CHAPTER XXX 


PALGRAVE 


HE Cowdrays dozed, the August afternoon 



I hummed softly with insect life but was others 
wise very still, not a bird moved. The elder ladies 
were out with the car. There had been debate at 
luncheon as to the best place to visit for a change; 
balancings of Tre Croce against some glen in the 
Valais. Departure was delayed by the exigencies of 
Millicent’s inheritance. The Court had been satis- 
fied as to her father’s death ; letters of administration 
had been granted, and the first moiety of the Went- 
worth capital in the Concern would be paid out with- 
in a few days, a juncture demanding her presence, 
her signature, and consent to re-investments. So 
Masson urged. 

‘‘It does seem rather absurd,” objected the girl 
to Marion Bohun; “you see I know nothing about 
things. ” 

“Time you did, my dear, Masson is not a young 
man; he might die, and where would you be with 
everything strange? Oh, I think we must respect 
his wishes though it means giving up those rooms I 
bespoke at Zermatt. Arolla and Saas Fde would be 
closed to us, full up; Fionnay might take us in. ” 

Millicent assented without enthusiasm; was con- 


362 Who Laughs Last 

cerned for her hostess, who needed bracing; for her- 
self, whom a fortnight of freedom had restored to 
health and looks, anywhere was good enough. She 
had seen too much of the world to care intensely 
for anything outside England, and was appreciating 
a home, and occasionally found herself planning a 
nest for herself with wide hearths and cosy corners 
‘ ‘ just so. ’ ’ Of these dreams she said nothing. More- 
over, but of this too she was silent, a three-weeks’ 
tour must interrupt a growing camaraderie with 
Ad&la’s boy. Young Winterbourne was often over. 
Each, without admitting it to her, or to himself, 
or recognising the participation of a playfellow, was 
shifting pawns and touching pieces without definite 
intentions. Billy was diffident ; Billy was thoughtful — 
full of self-communings leading no-whither ; Billy had 
a poor conceit of himself. For once, Billy was slow. 

Welbury and Whapshot are served by different 
lines, whose cross-country connections afford dilatory 
service. The man covered the fifteen miles between 
the houses variously; hacking this week, cycling the 
next, giving the new coachman his Sunday’s rest. 
His father still distrusted the motor. Hence Milli- 
cent, who had been exercising the dogs, found a cob 
and ralli-car at the door without surprise. He had 
come; he would be wanting tea. The brace of long- 
bodied, white West Highland terriers paddling beside 
her uttered gruff little barks and were stilled. She 
stopped in the porch to beat the dust from her skirt 
with the lead, patted down her hair at her temples 
with deft fingers, and sauntered into the drawing- 
room with a friendly smile upon softly-parted lips. 
But a taller form than the one she expected sprang 
up from the settee and moved to meet her. 


Palgrave 363 

“Miss Wentworth, you will remember me, I hope, 
I ” 

“Oh, yes, Mr. Palgrave, certainly I do! How 
kind of you to call! So the East Wessex is still at 
the camp? Do be seated. I will ring for tea. What 
a lovely afternoon! And in a ralli you would be out 
of your own dust. ” 

She had recognised him at a glance. He was wear- 
ing mourning, and seemed imperfectly at his ease, 
a little burden that she set herself to alleviate with 
hospitable intentions, if with no especial pleasure at 
renewing an acquaintance made under painful cir- 
cumstances. But the caller left the talking too ob- 
viously to his hostess, busying himself with the 
knees of his trousers. 

“Mrs. Bohun is out leaving farewell cards. Our 
circle will be scattering for the autumn. She may 
be back at any moment. ” 

The news seemed to increase the man’s nervous- 
ness, or perhaps to clinch resolution. “Have you 
heard from Mrs. Wentworth lately?’’ he asked, adding 
immediately that he had news of her — bad news, from 
the British Consul at Tangier. “My sister has had 
a seizure of some kind — sun-stroke or heat-apoplexy. 
She never rallied. She is dead. ” 

“ Really? Oh, how shocking ! ” said the girl. “Oh, 
Mr. Palgrave, I am so sorry for you. How sudden! 
I fear this is a blow. I wish — I had hoped some day, 
you know — I mean it is so sad and unsatisfactory. 
We never got on, but ” 

“I understand. You would have liked to have 
been reconciled. I do not know whether that would 
have been possible. My sister was a singular woman ; 
very determined. Oh, yes, poor Octavia was peculiar. 


364 Who Laughs Last 

But it was a deplorable finish, away among strangers 
and all.” 

“Yes, indeed!” assented the girl, with feeling. “I 
am really sorry for you, Mr. Palgrave. I don’t think 
I ever thanked you for your help at a very trying time, 
did I? I was so driven and perplexed at the moment, 
you know, but I have often ” 

“ Oh, it was nothing ! But do tell me how the thing 
went. I met your man of business in Paris. Had 
he any difficulty?” 

“None. I had escaped before he arrived. I got 
out of that house within an hour or two of your 
leaving.” 

“Good!” The man’s face was keen. “That was 
well done — lucky, or plucky, or both! But, even 
then, you had no money, for I, like an utter idiot, 
never thought to place my purse at your disposal. 
You don’t know what I felt like when I remembered ! ” 

“Oh, thanks; but, as it happened, it wasn’t of 
much consequence. My letter, the only one which 
I was able to write all those five weeks, had got 
through somehow, and my friend, Mrs. Bohun, was 
already in St. Lopez hunting for me. We met that 
afternoon.” Millicent condensed; the details were 
her own affair, and another’s. 

“ Good business! It was your day, ” said Palgrave, 
warmly, divining something of a suppressed ad- 
venture, and appreciating qualities in which he was 
somewhat to seek. “I have thought it all over a 
hundred times, Miss Wentworth, and wished, y’ know 
— wished I could have done more for you that day.” 
He flushed, he drew himself forward in his low seat; 
his eyes shone, his lips trembled and fell apart. 

“May I fill your cup?” interposed Millicent, 


Palgrave 365 

brusquely, suddenly aware that a declaration was 
coming. 

The ways of making the great avowal are very 
various: age, station, race, temperament impel, the 
occasion limits, convention restrains. A steals a 
kiss; B asks papa; C solicits an interview; D en- 
trusts his fortunes to an envelope; E and the other 
twenty-one letters of the alphabet plead in person 
with infinite variety of phrase but identical purport; 
yet it is safe to say that since courtship began the 
woman usually knows what is coming. Which is 
a step in advance; to have been clubbed in the dark 
and borne off across the shoulder of her “suitor” 
must have been an indifferent introduction to matri- 
mony; considered critically, it affords too few oppor- 
tunities for pre-marital acquaintance. 

Millicent was not quite a novice to the passive side 
of love-making; her still unsurrendered heart had 
sustained the assaults of a naval lieutenant on the 
China station, an attache at Pera, and a middle-aged 
evangelical chaplain at Giimmelwald. Hence she 
perceived from the warm embarrassment of her caller, 
from the way his cup shook and other indications, that 
an undesired climax was imminent, and set herself to 
avert it. In vain, her monologue ran down at last and 
her listener thrust in upon his fate, no saving him ! 

“You remember that villa, Miss Wentworth? (a 
hole of a place) — that room with the table? I was 
awfully cut up at finding what my poor sister was 
doing. I began by wanting — but, before we were 
through — or perhaps that came later, for I wish to be 
quite straight with you — anyhow, I have been long- 
ing ever since to see more of you, to get to know 
»♦ 

you 


366 


Who Laughs Last 

“Two lumps, Mr. Palgrave?’’ 

“Er, yes, thanks, if you please. One, I think. 
I mean that it did not seem quite playing the game, 
you see; not the thing, with you as you were just 
then — looked like taking an advantage, stealing a 
march, y’ know — would n’t it? You understand me, 
don’t you? This seems very sudden, I am afraid. 
It knocks you all of a heap, Miss Wentworth, and 
all that, but — ’’ dropping into the pre-arranged, 
“will you kindly regard this as a preliminary pro- 
posal?’’ 

It had come, the word which no woman of any 
age or station can hear unmoved. It had come. She 
was desired. Whilst he had been struggling to make 
his point, dodging her rebuffs, her eyes had remarked 
him more narrowly, and perhaps more sympa- 
thetically, certainly with interest, possibly with pity. 
At that former meeting, in that horrid house, fear 
had been her first obsession, succeeded by relief from 
fear, self-centred emotions both, but here and now 
she was mistress of the situation and could observe, 
consider, and appreciate. His words might be halt- 
ing, but they carried conviction and were full of mov- 
ing cadences. (What more do we ask of music?) 
He had a beautiful voice, a vibrant baritone, almost, 
but not quite a tenor. The Palgraves are a gifted 
race, and this was not the plainest man of his family, 
nor was the girl insensible to the appeal of graces and 
benignities such as have touched the hearts of women 
since time began. Why should she — not accept 
him, no — nor permit any sort of qualified engagement, 
but, say, admit him to her aquaintance, try his quality, 
herself uncommitted? Was he not urging this? 
Was it unfair to him? Each knew too little of the 


Palgrave 367 

other, each was a name, no more. Immediate de- 
cision was impossible, but how was a girl to decide 
at all if she kept every man at arm’s length — debarred 
herself from the means of forming criteria? When 
one marries one weds the man whom one knows, not 
him, possibly the man, whom one has kept at a dis- 
tance. You will perceive that this motherless girl 
had an understanding of what constantly escapes 
parents and guardians, a glimpse of those potent 
Numina, the Propinquities. We ignore them, but 
they persist and over-rule us. Whilst the eligible 
from an adjacent county is adjusting his pince-nez, ex- 
changing driver for mashie, patting down daisies, 
weighing, measuring, foozling his approach, that 
jolly young detrimental, the boy from next door, holes 
out in one! Again, why should she not? Her heart 
was still her own, unclaimed, ungiven, unsolicited! 
(Alas, poor Billy! laggard Billy! Unless ancestral 
influences fight for thee this afternoon the thing shall 
go ill indeed for thee !) Millicent was listening, look- 
ing; this was the face of the photograph, her silent, 
kindly companion for a desolate week when all the 
world had forsaken her, a man of noble presence. 
Whilst overbearing interruption he persisted, and 
she, still listening, allowed her eyes to rest upon his 
finely-modelled, bronzed face, its perfect contours 
and gracious lines. She told herself in very truth 
that all this was hers for the taking, nor would any 
blame or gainsay her desire for what other women 
found desirable. Yes; she would give him leave to 
call again, and had opened her lips for speech, but 
the man ran on impetuously, and still she perused 
him, now touched, now repelled, that virile depth of 
chest and breadth of shoulder overwritten by the 


368 


Who Laughs Last 

cancelling beauty of the lower face, the cleft chin, and 
protesting lips. What lips ! arched like a cupid s 
bow, drooping at their corners, unmasculine in their 
finish, not even boyish, womanly! Millicent, who 
had wandered for days in Italian galleries, and had 
stood entranced before many an antique marble 
form of manhood, remembered just such a face set 
upon just such shoulders. At Naples — or at Rome 
was it? At neither, but at Bloomsbury; this was 
the Apollo Citharoedus from Ephesus, loveliest and 
most futile effort of Greek genius. We are most of 
us bom physiognomists; children and dogs fearlessly 
employ what manhood distrusts. In many women 
the primal instinct persists. Millicent knew that it 
was in her to love this man, but hung back. What 
would life be when linked irrevocably to a noble pre- 
sence and halting will? Would she not have to supply 
motive power for both, and to find herself let down 
and gone back upon at each emergency? Yet his 
sister, that appalling stepmother, was she not strong? 
In truth yes, but as evidently this poor fellow was the 
male type of a beautiful family whose driving force 
goes to its women. The girl felt more than she could 
have put into words. His appealing softness seemed 
too unstable. A Reuben ! He had flinched once and 
his failure stood forward and testified. Why look 
longer upon this handsome man with the double 
mind, who saw, and yearned, and faltered, and did 
not strike? Between them fell the grey remembrance 
of a dismal afternoon when the cup of freedom had 
been held to her lips only to be withdrawn. Surely 
that other (the room teemed with invisible com- 
batants, battle was joined across that table though not 
a petal of the lilies in the vase shook ) — that other , the 


369 


Palgrave 

less picturesque friend, the boyish, slow-spoken play- 
mate, who had yet to speak (if indeed he meditated 
speech!) would never have acted so! He had been 
cast for a minor part in that memorable day’s drama, 
but had played with spirit. That extemporised 
dejeuner , that pounce upon the fiacre, the way he had 
gone over that wall! his breaking-in of the chamber 
door, his shouldering her trunks! That one had 
sprung at his chances as cover-point springs for a 
catch! a comrade of the trustiest; he, an Irish ter- 
rier of a man, leal and prompt in action, if somewhat 
inarticulate. 

It was then that the battle went against the Pal- 
graves. Millicent, not without compunction, got 
her lower nature under. Meanwhile her suitor had 
warmed to his work as a man should. Never before 
had Victor Palgrave permitted himself to think of 
marriage. His poverty had curbed him. Where the 
hot young fools of the mess went wrong, this staid, 
well-governed man had picked his steps and borne 
his burden. Now the curb was unlinked and the 
fardel loosed. He had not intended to have carried 
things so far at this first interview, but the woman’s 
beauty went to his head. What hair! it became her 
like a crown. What a shape! what lissom grace of 
attitude! what an arm and wrist! The clear, brown 
candour of her eyes, the sensitive nose and lip, oh, 
it overbore prudence and prepared speech; he could 
no longer contain himself. Nor had she flushed 
too painfully, nor arisen, nor repulsed him. Was it 
possible that this was his day? 

“You don’t know me, Miss Wentworth. I could n’t 
speak before. I was not in a position to justify. . . . 
Property has recently come to me. ...” 


24 


37 « 


Who Laughs Last 

“Oh, please, don’t go on!” cried the girl, her fine 
sympathetic face reddening with trouble. This would 
never do, it spoilt all. She should have interposed 
earlier. 

“But you haven’t — you don’t ...” urged the 
man. 

“Yes, I believe I have. ... I think I do. . . . 
Really, Mr. Palgrave, it is no good — now. ” 

The tone dashed him more than the words. He 
paused and read her face. There was a something 
in it that had not been there a minute since. What 
had he said? or done? “Then once — that day, 
you mean?” 

“Oh, you must not press me. ... I cannot 
say. . . . How do I know? ... I was up to my 
very lips in misery then. I wanted help inexpressibly, 
desperately! . . . and you went away ! ” 

“But I was without means then,” he urged, re- 
garding lost opportunity from his point of view. 
“I was as nearly broke as ” 

“What had that to do with it?” lacing and un- 
lacing white fingers. “It was life and death to me! 
A woman in the water, drowning under your very 
eyes, do you stop and show her your pass-book, Mr. 
Palgrave, to prove to her that it would not be ex- 
pedient and all that? I was going under for the third 
time whilst you were comparing incomes!” 

“What could I do? — what was I to do?” 

“ I don’t know. All I do know is that you did n’t. ” 

“You mean if I had ?” 

“Yes! — broke through, thrown everything aside, 
made the plunge, got me out, I — I don’t know what 
I might, or might not have done, but you did n’t, you 
see. And I am hurting you, and I did not intend to ! ” 


Palgrave 371 

“Not a bit! Never mind! no. I begin to see,” 
said the man, automatically stirring a cup of cold 
tea. “But I was in a tight place, Miss Went- 
worth. ” 

“And I in a still tighter, Mr. Palgrave.” 

“ I wanted to spare the name. ” 

“And I wanted my liberty, oh, so badly!” 

“Really, I did what seemed best for all con- 
cerned, ” he pleaded ruefully, for hope was running 
low. 

“For whom, Mr. Palgrave? For Mrs. Wentworth, 
or for yourself, or for me? The situation was difficult, 
I admit, but I think — yes, I do — that I had the first 
claim.” 

“Yes ... I can see it now. . . . And you are 
as good as telling me I was not up to my work. ” He 
set down his untasted cup, averting a mortified face 
which would not settle. Then he rose; the lady 
arose too, extending her hand. He took it, he held 
it too long, a freedom she did not resent, but there 
was no misconstruing her face; tears of pity were 
in her eyes, but neither love nor the possibility of 
love. This was farewell. 

“I have hurt you, but ” 

“Yes, I suppose I deserve it. You don’t know, 
and I hope you never will, how poverty cramps a 
man! — ties him up, keeps him in!” 

“Indeed, yes, I suppose so!” 

“Ah! it comes in all the time — the thought of 
it! When a fellow accustomed to means steps 
forward as a matter of course, a poor man awaits to 
consider if he can carry the thing through, and how 
it will look. If I had been an adventurer, Miss 
Wentworth ” 


372 


Who Laughs Last 

"You would have served me better? Yes, I can 


She reclaimed her hand. Neither spoke again, for 
in the silence the sound of the returning motor made 
itself heard. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


TIGHTENING THREADS 

41 HPHE world is made for each of us, ” sung Brown- 

1 ing; and the least and homeliest of mankind 
is of supreme importance to himself. To Millicent 
Wentworth, making first acquaintance with the new 
and spacious liberty of an orphaned heiress, the 
trammels of the law, and the responsibilities of a 
cheque-book and balance at her bankers, the world 
had tended to become a very wonderful circumference 
to herself as centre, had not she found the enclosing 
curve to be no circle at all, but an ellipse, with herself, 
indeed, occupying one of its foci, but with an alien 
personality at the other! 

Very similar was the experience of Mr. Wilbraham 
de Sa vigny-Cony ers Winterbourne (so beholding his 
name in advertisements, and upon circular letters ap- 
prising the banking world in general, and the clients 
of Winterbournes in particular, of his accession to 
a partnership in the Family Concern). In his case, 
however, temptations to undue elation were kept in 
abeyance by hourly experiences of his own inaptitude. 
With intense and undivided attention he was master- 
ing the art of casting, but in pace and accuracy was 
still a long way behind the junior clerks. In the 
legerdemain of “ telling’ ’ he despaired of ordinary 
skill. Our Mr. Haynes, for instance, could flatten 
373 


374 


Who Laughs Last 

out a heap of gold and pick the half sovereigns from 
the mass with his left hand whilst counting with the 
other, the operation resembling rather a pianist’s 
tour-de-force than a sordid process of finance. To 
attain to the pinnacled heights reached by our Mr. 
Wadbury, who could carry on polite conversation with 
one side of his mind whilst calculating with the other, 
was beyond our young banker’s fondest hopes. That 
he was taking his duties seriously, even Samuel ad- 
mitted, and Samuel watched closely; Masson had 
certified ability, but was there application? Wil- 
braham should be put through the mill for a couple 
of months, so into the mill went Billy. 

Whilst mastering the rudiments of his new pro- 
fession, the goose-step and facings of banking, our 
young friend was hampered with distractions personal 
to his age and condition, and arising in the most nat- 
ural manner from recent experiences. How is a man 
to keep his attention upon a beast of a column which 
persists in adding up to a different total every time 
you try, if all the while he is bothering about a girl? 
It had come to this; Billy was by way of discovering 
that his own orbit was no longer a true circle, but an 
ellipse, as aforesaid. The personality of that second, 
and elusive focus, was plain to him, though he had 
breathed no word upon the subject to any living. 
What at present was hid from him was the amazing 
circumstance (as he would have considered it) that the 
orbit of the lady of his affections was elliptical also, 
and that the point around which each life had begun 
to revolve was common to both. This sort of thing 
is very disturbing. Billy had to take himself rigor- 
ously in hand, adopting similar measures to those 
which had succeeded in the case of his old grudge 


Tightening Threads 375 

against Sam. “Heel!” he would whisper to himself 
when a soft delicious face came between him and 
the ledger. “Wire!” Momentary ebullitions not so 
inaudible as he supposed, and which amused our 
Mr. Haynes upon the next stool. But there is always 
Saturday afternoon, yes, and blessed Sunday. Mrs. 
Bohun was at the Cowdrays, and Millicent, her guest, 
being in mourning, was seeing nobody, missing the 
London season, which was Billy’s opportunity, who 
was frequently upon the Whapshot Road. Was there 
not excuse? His mother was at the Cowdrays upon 
a month’s visit, a gentler and less exigeant woman 
since the Simpkinson episode, a matter as to which 
she said nothing and hoped that her friends knew as 
little. Her husband’s recent treatment of her boy 
had surprised and softened her. That Samuel should 
have accepted the situation amazed her, nor did the 
new partner in Winterbournes give the firm away, 
making the best of what was, in truth, an uncommonly 
good job for all concerned, and letting bygones be 
bygones, like the sonsie fellow he is. To the better 
understanding of his elder brother Masson had lent 
a hand, Masson, with whom the boy had twice week- 
ended since his home-coming. 

“What makes Sam such a stick? Was he always 
like this?” 

The old lawyer pondered a while, not his reply but 
the ripeness of the youth to receive it. 

“Possibly he may have missed the woman he 
wanted or needed. I think I remember something 
of the sort, years ago, when he was your age. It drove 
him in upon himself. He worked it off, became a 
great worker, a public man. He was on the Council 
at twenty-three. But that kind of experience is like 


37 6 


Who Laughs Last 

a serious illness; the man regains his strength but not 
his elasticity, he has lost ten years of his life, his 
spring is gone.” 

“Poor old Sam, I never guessed!” 

And so passed three happy months; sunshine lay 
over southern England, Kathleen was growing big 
and rough and contented with her summer quarters, 
her future still undecided. The young people drew 
gradually nearer to an understanding beneath the 
sympathetic eyes of their elders. It was one of those 
times to which one looks back in after life with wonder ; 
as smoothly, uneventfully placid as the sheet of slid- 
ing water above the fall. 

For outside the picture other lives were being vigor- 
ously lived. Mr. Xerxes Y. Schlinck, for example, 
had been living all his time and getting there with 
both feet (to the surprise, and annoyance, and finan- 
cial loss of his admiring fellow-countrymen). It 
was nearly twelve months since he, having carried to 
a successful issue one of those complicated transactions 
which Americans call deals, and the inhabitants of 
effete European monarchies swindles, decided to lie 
low for a season. He had dropped out, disappeared. 
The Schlinck yacht, a floating palace as big as and 
fast as a liner, fitted with baths of statuary marble, 
supplied with scented waters from taps of solid gold, 
had borne him off into space. She had touched here 
and there, but her owner was never on board. His 
whereabouts remained his own secret, a mystery 
penetrated by the emissaries of the International, 
who, as we have seen, missed but little of demolishing 
their enemy. 

On the afternoon following that appalling adven- 
ture, Mr. Schlinck, having failed in attaching to him- 


Tightening Threads 377 

self the young Britisher who had done him so good 
a turn, was in the lowest of spirits. He was badly 
shaken, both physically and mentally. He could 
hardly lift his liquor to his lips without spilling it, 
and had sustained a moral rebuff. He knew that his 
disguises had been penetrated, his movements fol- 
lowed, and his life threatened for a month past; nor 
was he any safer at the moment. His assailant lived, 
and was in the immediate vicinity, armed, determined, 
and in collusion with his personal servant. Xerxes 
Y. felt that he was up against a situation of the rock- 
iest. He, a man of the coolest nerve, and unmeasured 
resource, knew not in which direction to turn, nor 
upon whom to lean. 

It was at this moment that a note was brought to 
him, written in the vestibule of the hotel a minute 
before. The writer had left. It ran thus: 

“Mr. W. begs to inform Mr. Schlinck that, since 
leaving Mr. S.’s hotel an hour ago, he revisited the 
scene of the accident, and discovered the explanation 
of the shot which was fired whilst Mr. S. and him- 
self were standing by the bodies. 

“ If Mr. S. will go to the place he will find upon the 
hill, about two hundred feet above the road, a small 
hollow, or cave, overhung by a rock and a thick bush. 
In this cave is the body of the red-haired Irishman 
who tried to take liberties with Mr. S.’s tires on board 
the steamboat. This man died about an hour since 
from an accidental shot from his own weapon. The 
writer has not informed the authorities, nor the man 
in Mr. S.’s service, preferring to leave Mr. S. a free 
hand. 

“I think your chauffeur’s real name is Mooney. 


37 » 


Who Laughs Last 

The word was on the other man’s lips whilst dying. 
He was Freany. ” 

Mr. Schlinck’s spirits arose upon the rebound. 
“ Great Scott! this is the hayseed dude. It’s 
straight, sure. I can play on it. ” He acted promptly. 
At the garage he found his man pallid with sus- 
pense, for which he could have given no rational ex- 
planation. His employer’s return without a car was 
a surprise. Schlinck struck first, “Hillo, Auguste! 
Feel sick? Hand right bad? So! Wall, come right 
along with me. She has broken down a little; not 
far, say a kilo away. A walk ’ll set you to rights.” 

“Quoi, m’sieu?” But the fellow understood and 
did as his master bade him. The Boss was smart; 
he took a foot-path and reached the bush from behind 
without meeting a soul. At sight of the corpse the 
confederate collapsed in incoherent English. Schlinck 
took charge of the situation. 

“I guess I know you, Mr. Mooney. Your friend 
Freany, there, missed me but blew a hole in himself, 
see? There is his gun, it went off in his pocket. 
Nobody has touched him yet. You and I have the 
inside track, Mr. Mooney, and we can put up a win- 
ning deck if we can agree about things. See? Don’t 
funk, I ’m not covering you; naturally I ’m heeled, 
but I shan’t plug you if we can deal. First you shall 
tell me the whole blame story; start right away, I 
know most of it already. Begin at Pah-ree. ” 

The wretch began, and sweating with fear of the 
concealed Browning, and at the awful vengeance 
which a traitor might expect from the Society which 
he was betraying, groaned on to the end of a remark- 
able history of abortive crime. 


Tightening Threads 379 

“Vurry pretty!” remarked Schlinck when the 
tale ended. “Take that man’s gun if you like, but 
you ’ll never use it; you ain’t built that way, Mr. 
Mooney. Oh, you ’d ruther not? Let it lie, then. 
Vurry well. You have missed fifty good chances of 
earning what your friends have put on my head this 
three years, haven’t you? That’s so! Then it 
stands to reason you are on the wrong job, and in 
with the wrong push. Join me. Think! If I was 
the man they told you what prevents my blowing the 
back out of your fool head and leaving you here with 
your pard? It would look as if you ’d had a scrap 
and drilled one another, would n’t it? I should n’t 
show. No one saw us coming — eh? Vurry well; 
that ’s settled. My car is in the sea down there, just 
below. I don’t fancy she is worth salving, but there 
is the sable coat and one or two fixings you may be 
getting hold of before the toughs find them. We will 
leave Mr. Freany where we found him. It is n’t our 
funeral, Mr. Mooney. Shake your crowd now and 
here; I shall require your services on my yacht for a 
few days, and when I don’t I will start you with a 
hat-full of greenbacks for Chile, or Vancouver, or 
Brisbane, or whatever port you have not friends 
waiting at. ” 

That was all. Nothing more passed. The Boss 
had scored again. The men parted upon the spot, 
leaving by different routes, each to his business. 
Before he had reached his rooms at the Belvidere, 
where it is needless to say his identity was unsus- 
pected, Schlinck had planned his campaign. During 
the whole of the next week heavy sellings of Schlinck 
stocks surprised Wall Street, but so rooted was the 
confidence of the public in the Boss’s luck and ability 


380 


Who Laughs Last 

that this raid from an unknown enemy failed to drive 
the assailed securities down to any appreciable ex- 
tent; the market opened its mouth and absorbed 
everything offered at nominal tape reductions. Then, 
in the last edition of the last-issued evening paper on 
the Saturday, appeared the news of what one lurid 
scare-head assured its readers was an international 
calamity. “Death of Boss Schlinck. Appalling Mo- 
tor Smash in France. The Deadly Corniche claims 
another Victim. Leap of a hundred and ninety feet 
into deep water. The Car visible at Low Tide. Where 
is the Body? Was it Foul Play? Exclusive Cable 
from our Correspondent at St. Lopez. Harrowing 
details follow. ” 

“That’ll about fetch ’em,” remarked the Boss, 
who by this time had paid his bill at the Belvidere 
and withdrawn to a chalet dependance at Champdry. 
A code despatch to a man in Brooklyn, the one man 
in the States whom he trusted, had started the raid. 
It is said that Moltke’s pigeon-holes contained de- 
tailed plans, written up to date, for the invasion of 
every country in Europe. Xerxes Y. Schlinck was 
a Moltke in his own line; the brokers who habitually 
operated under his orders were left without directions; 
to a man they believed in the truth of the reported 
death, and deplored the loss of a leader. That another 
push should be hard at it, knocking down Schlinck 
stocks, was but natural; the public who last week 
were anxious to buy were now wild to sell. In seventy- 
two hours the truth was out : Schlinck’s car, brought 
to the level by block-tackles, had been identified, 
photographed, and minutely described. That it had 
pitched seventy feet (not the one hundred and ninety 
of the original cable) was admitted, also that its 


Tightening Threads 381 

owner had been in it at that time. That he had 
escaped with certain scratches, quite superficial, 
seemed to be the real state of affairs, and another 
instance of his phenomenal luck. As the Brooklyn 
Eagle put it, “Our esteemed citizen is recuperating 
from the shock at a seaside resort in sunny Switzer- 
land. His hurts are negligible, his head is intact 
and still surveys the field of finance, whilst the 
Schlinck hands, quite uninjured, have been in our 
pockets for a week past.” 

Having sold upon the top of a boom, he was about 
to make delivery with stocks bought in at the fall; 
a gulled, but admiring, public beheld another million 
added to the world-famous pile. 

Lest my readers should imagine that this is mere 
digression, I hasten to assure them that the incident 
is german to the development of my story, that whilst 
months are slipping past, and Millicent is wondering 
what Billy thinks of her, Billy is reciprocally asking 
himself what Millicent thinks of him (not having as 
yet nerved himself to ask her in person), and whilst 
Sir Auberon Poyntz, K.C., is quarrelling with Sir 
Timothy Peppercorn day after day over fche great 
Codlington and Another v. Corporation of Welbury 
case, and Mr. Samuel, awaiting his turn to give evi- 
dence, is kicking his heels in Court, events outside the 
limited orbits of lovers, King’s Counsel, and country 
bankers are bringing along a catastrophe. 

The name of Schlinck was in all men’s mouths, 
even French and German newspapers commented 
upon the man’s latest coup. Throgmorton Street, 
which did n’t follow him closely, was for once amused, 
but missed the point of it all, the giant operator’s 
true objective, foreseeing nothing, belittling the man’s 


382 


Who Laughs Last 

real stature. It was to his own countrymen that he 
appealed at this the summit of his greatness. Having 
perfected his plans for the campaign of his life, he now 
approached the camp of his foes with alternative 
proposals. It had been war to the knife between the 
allied roads and himself for years. Which had come 
out top-dog? He simply put the question. They 
could answer it without his assistance. But was this 
to go on? He was satisfied to leave the issue to them. 
For himself he would lay his cards upon the table 
and let them have it one of four ways. Should it be 
waffen nieder , a friendly combine at day’s prices all 
round and quit rate-cutting? Or would they sell 
him their interests on equitable valuations? Or 
would they buy his upon similar terms? Or fight 
it out? 

His enemies conferred. Partnership with a man 
whom nobody could hold or trust was impossible. 
“To take the Boss for a pard would be bug-house” 
(a refinement of the great American language which 
has not yet caught on upon this side). To sell to him 
would bar them from the Atlantic seaboard and in- 
definitely check projected extensions. They bought 
him out, as he knew they would. The culmination 
of the deal, the final scene, was a masterpiece of stage 
management. The parties met to exchange securities ; 
the Boss, whom no one on the street had seen in the 
flesh since his “accident,” hobbled into the room 
between two men nurses (armed detectives), swathed 
in medicated cotton- wool, reeking of iodoform, wear- 
ing blue spectacles, so obviously a physical wreck 
that if a break-away had been upon the cards it would 
have been attempted. But, dying man though he 
seemed, Schlinck had provided against contingencies. 


Tightening Threads 383 

He personally inspected every bill of the enormous 
pile, locked the mass into a despatch-box, and arose 
to leave. “Na-ow, boys, I guess you’ve seen the 
last of me. All I ask of you is to forget that Zerk 
Schlinck ever crawled this terrestrial globe. Call 
me a back-number. In an hour I sail for Eur-rope 
to go build my maw-so-leem. ” 

For the next three months the grey heads and the 
bald heads, which watch through spectacles the move- 
ments of the gold of the world, beheld with surprise, 
with interest, with amazement, and at length with 
something approaching alarm, the shipment of gold 
from the States to the United Kingdom. Week 
in, week out, White Star and Cunard Liners brought 
millions upon millions of specie for the bank. Leader- 
writers dilated upon the extraordinary spectacle of 
the high seas being safely traversed by freights out- 
vying the richest argosies of ancient Persia or mediae- 
val Spain, cargoes unguarded, unwatched, unescorted, 
whose defence was the name and the might of the 
Mistress of the Seas (and so forth; you recognise 
the hand), which was all very fine, but the grey and 
the bald heads aforesaid did n’t bother about the 
leaders and did about the coming harvest out west, 
for, as most people know, the annual handling of 
the crops of the United States is a big job, and one 
that has to be paid for in hard money on the nail. 
Moreover, what might be the result of withdrawing 
such a mass of the medium of exchange from the 
States, where business (speculation) had been ad- 
vancing by leaps and bounds for years? Were there, 
or were there not, indications that the monetary sys- 
tem of the New World had been stretched to its 
limit? In a word, were we in for another American 


3»4 


Who Laughs Last 

panic? And scarcely had the question been asked 
than it was answered; the widely-expanded, thin- 
drawn web of credit which covered the United States 
split at its weakest point. A joint-stock bank out 
West stopped. A second followed, a third, a fourth 
collapsed, and whole communities, to whom credit 
was the very breath of their commercial being, were 
left without resources. Then Fear tightened men’s 
throats and looked out of their eyes. Who would 
go next? In whom, or in what might a man repose 
confidence? And, alas! there was none to answer! 
For the previous twenty-four months everybody 
had been borrowing, had launched out, relaying tracks, 
replacing trestle-bridges with girders, scrapping old 
plant, putting in new machinery, speculating in real 
estate, running-up sky-scraper blocks, gambling in 
irrigation schemes, in mines, in wild-cat enterprises 
and worse. And now that the available funds of the 
lenders were exhausted, these were for seeing their 
moneys again, and began calling in loans, foreclosing 
mortages, realizing securities whilst they might and 
where they could. And the only market was London. 

“I dare say you have not noticed what is going 
on across the water, Wilbraham?” Billy had seen 
something in the papers, but was far from under- 
standing what he had read, or from anticipating 
what the effect might be upon European banking. 
Samuel, who was getting to like his half-brother as 
a partner better than he had thought possible, gave 
him a few pointers. “You see in America there is 
no central institution like our Bank of England. 
Why? Because there is no one man in the Union 
whom his fellow-citizens dare trust with the handling 
of so much money. The first Governor of a Bank of 


Tightening Threads 385 

the United States (they would call him President, 
I suppose) might stand the strain, and so might the 
second, but number three would probably break down 
under it, as these insurance directors have been doing, 
lending money to themselves under fictitious names, 
and financing all their friends. I see two more bank 
presidents have absconded to Ecuador and another 
shot himself.” 

“This will make a high bank rate, won’t it?” asked 
Billy, who was beginning to see his way. 

“Without doubt. Didn’t you see they raised it 
again yesterday? The demand for money across 
there will be tremendous, and those who want it 
will have to pay our price for it.” 

“It will hit the weak men on this side too, eh?” 

“Naturally, and check all new issues.” Mr. 
Samuel sighed. “This Welbury Loan must be post- 
poned again. A nuisance.” 

Billy knew that his brother was thinking of that 
unwieldy overdraft. The Corporation was leaning 
too heavily upon its treasurer. The amount had 
touched proportions which he had not contemplated. 
That loan should have been floated whilst things were 
booming ; no use to talk about it now. 

“I see our case, Codlington v. Welbury, is first on 
the list for Monday, which means I may have to sit 
in Court for the next two or three days — nuisance! 
I suppose Masson will cash that draft for the Went- 
worth capital on Monday?” Mr. Samuel frowned. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


BILLY SPEAKS 

T HE ancients, the medievalists, the modern 
Hindu, and, speaking broadly, all they who 
inhabit east of Suez, together with Madame Zoe of 
999A Regent Street, and a certain gipsy hawker whom 
I have repeatedly warned off my back premises, held, 
or hold, that the heavenly bodies are intimately con- 
cerned with human affairs. I confess I have listened 
to propositions more likely, but one would be hard 
put to it to disprove this. For aught I know there 
may be something in it. My neighbour, who uses 
a four-and-a-half-inch refractor (Altaz) o’ nights, 
with much enthusiasm and cold in the head, brings 
me tales of the heavenly host more unlikely still. 
From his accounts the goings-on above us are well — ! 
Most stars are single persons (he says), but many 
are conjugally united, paired, in short, whilst the 
relations of others are distressingly complicated. He 
speaks of coupled stars revolving around another 
couple, which reciprocally revolves around the former, 
with resultant eclipses and other troubles. This is 
bewildering; it makes one dizzy to think upon, it 
is worse than figure-skating, say, the three-with-the- 
open-loop worked backward amidst a rush of ice 
hockey-players. In Shakespeare’s time certain stars 
386 


Billy Speaks 387 

shot madly from their spheres. They do still, he 
says (my neighbour, not Shakespeare), and barge 
into one another, causing Nova (if I have it aright), 
an euphuism for personal collisions of the most heated 
description, explosive, ebullient! It looks as if we 
were ruled by Powers indifferent to wholesome speed 
regulations and social conventions. But I draw the 
line at one pair of stars and those they affect. If a 
reader cannot take interest in the way of a man with 
a maid, let him work logarithms. My topic is antique, 
humane, and very various. Its intricacy confounded 
King Solomon, experienced family man though he was. 
My story shall tell of no promiscuous irregularities, 
all I ask you to believe is the possibility of two young 
morning stars singing aloft as they shyly revolve, 
and two young hearts in a summer garden below. 

And this is the way in which it had come about. 
Millicent Wentworth, still in mourning and not in 
Society, was staying with Marion Bohun at Cowdrays; 
Wilbraham Winterbourne, working hard five and a 
half days per week at his banking, was housed at 
Hornbeams. The lady had found the August night 
hot; it was Sunday morning, and soon after six 
gave it up as a bad job. There was no more rest, 
for her in bed. Why blink the fact? She was think- 
' ing of him. Could n’t away with him, willy, nilly 
(nay — Billy!). She bathed, she dressed, she knew 
where to look for the biscuits. The French window 
of the drawing-room went with no noise, and Millicent 
found herself in the cool of a perfect summer’s morn- 
ing, a day direct from the hand of God, which, so 
far, had received but little attention from His chil- 
dren. She had it all to herself. A Sunday morning 
is a lie-abed morning for those of our fellow-creatures 


388 


Who Laughs Last 

whose week-day duties call them early. Hence the 
long, straight, white rides beneath the Whapshot 
pines were as lonely as the trails of American back- 
woods, and all their native life bold and visible as it 
is not wont to be upon week-day mornings. (This 
is a fact. Have I not seen seven Alpine nutcrackers 
come within shot of the lower hotel at Arolla whilst 
English visitors, prayer-book in hand, were trotting 
off uphill to service?) Who knows not that birds 
know Sunday? The Whapshot birds do. Or they 
may have known Millicent, anyway; she had finer 
views of the great spotted woodpecker on that oc- 
casion than she has ever had since. They played 
around her, showing off, exhibiting that lovely rose- 
carmine underside of theirs for her sole admiration. 

“ Oh, if Billy were here ! ” she whispered with breath- 
less delight , seeing, as a woman in love sees, all nature 
with the eyes of him she worships. And then, glanc- 
ing up at the sound of a crackling twig, there was the 
man of her heart striding between the tall red trunks 
a hundred yards away, and ignorant of her presence, 
a mile and more from Cowdrays, and at what he would 
have called an unholy hour for a girl to be about. 

Yet that hour was to be one of the holiest. He, 
too, had found the August night long and hot, and 
had risen soon after three, and leaving a note upon the 
hall slab to tell the household that he, being off for an 
all -day walk, might be expected when they saw him, 
had filled his pockets with bread-and-cheese from 
Mrs. Lambkin’s department, and stepped forth in the 
first tingling dusk of dawn to do his fifteen miles 
before breakfasting with Mrs. Bohun, his mother, 
and — Millicent. For neither could he sleep for 
thinking of the some one for whom his nature yearned. 


389 


Billy Speaks 

And thus have the sweet influences of the Pleiades 
brought these two young hearts to the critical day of 
their lives. 

The fellow was enormously, childishly happy, 
yet he had no plan, nor had fixed whether to do or 
withhold, speak or refrain. He walked fast and de- 
lightedly as though upheld and impelled by invisible 
hands, and all the still green morning of songless 
August woods was his gracious attendant and he at 
peace with all he saw. A badger shuffled across the 
road; he blessed that badger. Three squirrels, chas- 
ing one another round and round a trunk so swiftly, 
so silently, and so closely as to resemble an endless 
red serpent, exhibited their beauty for his benefit. 
He blessed those squirrels. 

He swung along at a fair four miles to the hour, 
for a fellow must keep himself fit, dontcherknow, 
and sitting on a stool all day makes you as soft as 
butter; he was walking fast and hard, I say, and the 
girl saw that, herself unbeheld, he would pass un- 
heeding. She was wide of the path he was following, 
and hidden by a holly. So, being a sensible young 
woman, and (almost) sure of herself, if at present 
unsure of her man, who had not yet spoken out (be- 
ing sure of himself, but quite unsure of his girl, 
of whom he felt absolutely unworthy) — so, I say, 
being a young lady of excellent sense, Millicent 
whistled. 

And, as the thin, sweet sound left her lips, was 
instantly ashamed of herself, and looked as though 
she had not done it, insomuch that Billy, checking 
in mid-stride, and glancing sharply between the red, 
scaly trunks, beheld a lady who appeared to have 
done nothing at all to attract the attention of a gentle- 


390 


Who Laughs Last 

man of whose proximity she was scarcely, if at all, 
aware. And such are good women! 

"Good gracious, Miss Wentworth! Who would 
have expected to meet you here at this time in the 
morning?” 

"I might say something of the same sort, might n’t 
I? You haven’t walked from Welbury? Why not 
have ridden, or cycled? What time did you start? 
Are not you dying of hunger? Do they know you 
are coming? I hope there will be something for 
breakfast.” Thus does a good woman take instant 
thought for the body of the man of her heart. Each 
looked the other over in decorous sort and found ap- 
pearances favourable. Both were splendidly well. 
Millicent’s black frock threw up her white textures 
and the bronze lustre of her hair. She was bare- 
headed. The level morning light through the trees 
is pitiless upon personal defects, but she stood it, a 
girl of a thousand. The faithful, brown, spaniel 
eyes were kinder than ever, alive with the light of 
service, and something beyond. 

Billy, who has no beauty to recommend him, looked 
just himself, and, fortunately for him, that was suf- 
ficient for Millicent. "The dear boy,” her heart 
was saying, "he has tramped out here to see me! 
How good he looks! How good he is! ” 

They fell into step, that mile and a half went 
slowly. 

The nearer to the house the more silent and dilatory 
and distrait they became. Billy, never at any time 
a conversationalist, failed to take up the topics the 
girl presented for his use. His attention wandered. 
How would she take it? Would she let him down 
easy if she refused him. Of course a fellow such 


Billy Speaks 391 

as he was no catch. Too young, for one thing. She 
might be just his age, but a girl of twenty-one was at 
her best, whilst he was still neither boy nor man, a 
summut-or-nothing, a fellow who had been fired out 
of one profession and had not yet got his hand around 
the one he had been drafted into. It was certainly 
too soon to speak to her, and yet he almost felt as 
if he must. Would she wait for him if he asked 
her? 

“You are tired, Mr. Winterbourne.” 

“Eh? I beg your pardon. Wasn’t attending. 
Sorry. You see that line of rails, Miss Wentworth? 
We had them with the Brake, Kathleen and I, last 
Christmas week. They don’t look much, but there 
is a dip in the take-off which makes them a fair five 
feet. ... I bought her back the other day from 
Masson. He is something like a brick, for he can 
sit her ; you ’d never think it to look at him, would 
you? I should awfully like to see you on her, Miss 
Wentworth. You shall ride her with a double snaffle, 
and” (his imagination running away with him) “we 
will get up before breakfast, you know, and lark 
hurdles to school her, you know, and — ” He stopped, 
finding only rose-pink amazement in his companion’s 
face, for how could such schemes materialize? Milli- 
cent had never seen Hornbeams, nor, in the absence 
of a mistress, how could a lady visit there? This 
would not quite do. The at times feverishly-longed- 
for, at others shyly-peeped-at cup of bliss was being 
pushed to her lips too energetically. Did the boy 
know what his suggestion implied? She slipped 
gently aside from its incidence. 

“Tell me about Callouris. I shall always feel 
sorry we did n’t make that expedition. Marion 


39 2 


Who Laughs Last 

planned a motor-day to Chateau Laruns and your 
wonderful ruin, but it never came off.” 

“No, my folks sounded the recall. Poor old Gos- 
sett’s death and his will, you know. Something like 
a surprise packet that! Whoever dreamed ?” 

“I say, Mr. Winterbourne ” 

“Couldn’t you call me Billy, Miss Wentworth? 
Everybody else does. It sounds so stiff — the other.” 

“No — er — I don’t think I could before people. 
Oh, what a thing to say ! What I meant was it sounds 
so familiar. But I ’ll call you Wilbraham, if you like, 
just for this occasion only, as far as the gate, say!” 
(Happy laughter.) “And now, about Callouris and 
that jolly old artist-man who has made such a hit 
in Bond Street. Marion took me to his gallery. 
It makes you forget yourself, you are south of Avig- 
non in a moment. You smell the wood-smoke, and 
the frying-oil of those little narrow steep lanes, and 
see the dry, level roofs with the yellowish-grey tiles 
all cockled and overlying one another.” 

“ I know, I have been once. The room was full-up. 
I bought a bit or two for old acquaintance’ sake, but 
from what they told me the things were going like 
ripe cherries.’ ’ 

“You have never told me a word about your five 
weeks. Was n’t it an awfully hard time? A coming 
down? Hardships and all that?” 

“N-no,” pondered Billy, screwing up his eyes the 
better to get his past-and-gone experiences into focus ; 
“I don’t think I worried much after the flesh-pots, 
y’ know. It is like this — ” The man who has been 
through the mill was speaking, recalling the attrition 
and the removal of the non-essential husk. “Some- 
thing this way, you see; when a fellow has had about 


Billy Speaks 393 

as much money as he could do with all his life, and 
has n’t played the goat with it, he sits light by things. 
You have camped out, I think, in the Karoo, was n’t 
it? Oh, and New Zealand! Just so; and when you 
were under canvas you were under canvas, and did n’t 
get asking for the hot-and-cold taps and all that. 
Same here.” 

“But wasn’t it unpleasantly rough and comfort- 
less and dirty, and — lonely?” 

“A bit, sometimes. Then I walked it off. Oh, 
yes, country is country, and you can stand rough 
does in camp which you would kick against in cham- 
bers, I expect. But that was where dear old Masson’s 
letters came in, before Pennegwent took me up to 
Laruns. Here we are!” 

He held the gate open ; the Cowdrays was as quiet 
as the woods outside, the dust of its drive pitted with 
the night’s dewfall, the lawn rough with shimmering 
wet and the first veils of gossamer of the year, a sight 
for angels, which we men are unworthy of and mostly 
miss. 

“Twenty minutes before breakfast, but they 
will be late; it is a movable feast here. And” — a 
grave inspection — “you want a brush-down pretty 
badly.” 

Then did Billy behold himself and his lips fell apart. 
“I’m white with it; it must have been that stretch 
of chalky road the other side of Amners. It trod 
softish, but was too dark then to see. Can you get 
me a brush? I ’ll do it outside; no use in taking all 
this into a house.”! 

“I have the very thing, bristles are no good. You 
want a long swish, we know; our skirts pick it up 
worse than your stockings.” 


394 Who Laughs Last 

“Ad£la! wake up! jump up and come to my room, 
quick!” 

Marion, as she had left her own bed, was bending 
over her sleeping friend with smiling lips and happy, 
mischievous eyes. 

“My dear, what is it? Oh, yes, I ’m coming. As 
I am, if you like.” Both women flitted across the 
turkey-carpeted landing bare-footed, secure in their 
deshabillS in a house wherein the service was all of 
their own sex. 

“Now, look and listen! It is a little mean, but 
the darlings shall never guess, and ‘what the eye 
does n’t see,’ you know.” 

The women bent silently against the Venetians, 
which excluded the morning sun, and watched Mil- 
licent brushing down her lover upon the flagged 
terrace below. 

“Do stand still, sir, how can I — ?” (brush, brush). 

“ ‘This style forty-five-and-nine,* ” laughed Billy, 
straightening himself with elliptically-held arms, a 
tailor’s dummy. “Oh, not in my mouth, please!” 
as the long yellow fibres touched his face. 

“So sorry, did it taste? I can hardly see what I 
am doing — shall want dusting myself.” 

“There! are not they happy? Were they not just 
made for one another?” asked Marion. “How did 
she know he was coming? She must have been down 
and out to meet him! The puss! And I have been 
able to get nothing out of her, and fancied somehow 
that she did not know her own mind.” 

“Where did he get it — that way? He is not in the 
least like me — or him I What a wife she will make 
him! What a wife! But I shall lose my boy!” said 
Ad&la, with a choke. 


Billy Speaks 395 

“And gain her babies, which they say is something 
to live for,” replied Marion, thoughtfully, feeling 
the emptiness of a life that had missed half of its 
rightful experiences. “ Ad&la, you are crying ! Come 
away, get in with me for another few minutes! 
They won’t want us; her coffee will taste better than 
yours or mine. Now, what is it? Tell me! I never 
heard of a mother shedding tears over her son’s 
happiness.” 

“I want him!" whimpered Ad&la, her head beneath 
the clothes. 

“Who?’ 

“My husband. It all comes back. Oh, what a 
wicked fool I have been!” 

“But (you never breathed a word, of course), but 
I fancied, or was told, that he used you badly, was 
brutal ” 

“I deserved it!” cried the wife, throwing off the 
sheet and displaying a tear-stained face. “He was 
a dear, kind, good old thing, and he loved me fright- 
fully, and I tormented him, and humbugged him, 
and drove him to distraction, and — and — ” She 
plunged down again. The bed shook. 

Marion, bending above her weeping friend, patted 
the heaving shoulders, her fine, sympathetic face 
puckered with bewilderment. This was a new Ad&la. 
“Whoever would have thought? We women are the 
most unaccountable creatures upon God’s earth! 
I was told that he heat her! And here she is weeping, 
crying for him ! Addla, I ’ll send your breakfast up. 
No, I ’ll bring it.” 

“I ’ll be hanged if you shall, you best of creatures, 
you!” and Ad£la, bounding from the bed, fled laugh- 
ing to her own room and bath. 


396 


Who Laughs Last 

The day turned to heat. The elder ladies lay in 
hammocks; it was too warm for walking, but Billy 
took Millicent to the small, new red-brick-and-half- 
timbered church among the pines. It was almost 
empty, the resident gentry were in London, or Scot- 
land, or Cowes. A quiet wedding in humble life was 
toward. The plain, brown-faced bride, uncomfortable 
in her stiff white frock, and pitiably shy, faced a 
curate himself a novice, who got through the service 
“somehow,” as Billy observed. “Did you see that 
bridegroom-fellow’s hands? What paws! He dropped 
the ring ; looks as if he was n’t accustomed to handle 
anything smaller than a horse-roll or threshing 
machine.” Millicent smiled. “He looked as if he 
could be kind to her.” There was a shy little pause. 
He, going wide of the big fence which he dreaded, 
so undeserving did he find himself when in the pre- 
sence of this girl, began upon subjects indifferent. 

“You ’ll be glad to hear that half your money is 
safe, anyhow. We remitted Masson the ‘first moiety* 
of your capital in the Concern last night. So, if we 
go bung you ’ll still have something to live upon.” 

Millicent smiled again. The idea of anything 
happening ! 

“So that is the end of a hundred years and more 
partnership. Wentworth is out of the Concern. 
No more Wentworth and Winterbourne. Somehow, 
I don’t like the sound of it, do you? It is n’t natural. 
Will you change the name?” 

“No. I think not. Fact, I ’m sure we shan’t. 
Look here, Miss Wentworth — ” Billy had stopped, 
was standing in the middle of a ride among the trees, 
describing a small circle in the needles with the ferule 
of the lady’s sunshade. Millicent saw what was 


Billy Speaks 397 

coming and made as if to move on, but stopped; it 
would have been too cruel. 

“Look here, Miss Mill — I mean Miss Wentworth. 
No, I will call you Millicent, for once, anyhow! Look 
here, what I want to say is — if you feel like that about 
going out of the Concern, what do you think I feel? 
No, that’s not a fair question either. Put it this 
way — talk of changing the name of the Concern. 
Why put the Wentworth out? Why not keep it in? 
Speaking of changing names, would you — could you 
change yours, Miss Milliworth — Wenticent, I mean. 
Confound it ! I’m an idiot ! That ’s not what I want 
to say either. It ’s just this — I am awfully fond of 
you; have been like this ever since that day we met 
with the Brake ” 

“Oh!” whispered the girl, who had not the faintest 
idea that she had made an impression upon that casual 
rencontre. 

“Really, that did it; and then that time at the 
buffet, when you wanted ” 

“And you would n’t! Oh!” 

“Couldn’t. I was too down on my luck. You 
did n't know. And then at St. Lopez, at that 
cabaret place — I was dog-tired; I ’d been asleep and 
I woke up from dreaming about you, and there you 
were!” 

“Hush! please, Mr. Winter ” 

“Billy, please!” 

“Wilbraham, then ” 

“No, Billy!" 

“Well, Billy." (How honey-sweet the dear word 
tasted!) “But do move on, here come some people.” 

“Only that fellow and his girl; they won’t mind. 
Will you have me?” 


398 Who Laughs Last 

She did not reply. They walked on in silence side 
by side. 

“Not now! not yet!” she faltered as he drew near 
to her with warm, tremulous intent. “Give me 
time. I must think this over.” The cold fit of 
maidenly revulsion swept down upon her, the sense 
of the irrevocableness of this step to which she had 
all but committed herself. 

“Please don’t press me now. Come to-morrow, in 
the evening, perhaps — ” Then, conscious that his 
foot lagged and his face was falling, “This is awful for 
me; I have no one to advise me. If dear papa were 
alive he would put all sorts of questions, would not 
he? He would want to know — Oh, how can I — ? 
Have you ever — ? Are you — ?” The motherless 
creature flushed painfully. “I don’t know how to 
say it! Do you keep a diary?” 

Billy nodded. “It is mostly about birds.” 

“But if you had kept a real diary, and had put 
down in it day by day all that you thought and did 
and said, could you show me that diary? Would there 
be no pages gummed down? Oh, Billy, was there 
another girl at the Camp? No! Oh, I am so glad! 
Nor at Callouris?” She faced him with burning 
cheeks and exploring eyes. 

“There was a girl of a sort there,” he began, but 
the candour of his face left her in no doubt, “a poorish 
sort she was,” he went on, “and — er — I didn’t like 
the way she looked at me, so I — er — just cleared out 
and went to old Pennegwent. No, I really think 
that is about all. I never could bother to keep that 
sort of a diary, you know; takes up too much time; 
but if I had there would n’t be any gummed-down 
pages.” Her face cleared. 


399 


Billy Speaks 

“Now, Millicent, will you have me?” 

“Yes!” 

“Then may I?” 

The man — a man at last — found all heaven in a 
woman’s eyes and on a woman’s lips, after which the 
two walked on slowly and in silence. 

At eight that evening the three ladies saw Billy 
stride off Welbury-ward into the green dusk beneath 
the pines. 

“Good-bye, Billy, I may meet you in the City to- 
morrow; must run up to see my brokers.” 

“But I shall be out west, mother. Our big Corpor- 
ation case is on. Sam will be in court all day. I 
may sit out an hour of it. Hardly likely to see you. 
Good-night, Mrs. Bohun. Good-night, Miss Went- 
worth!” 

They watched him out of sight; the two elders 
turned house- ward. “Where is that girl? Do you 
think, Ad£la, they fixed it up to-day?” 

“No idea. She seems uncommonly quiet, and 
Billy — but Billy would n’t turn a hair. You ’d never 
get anything out of Billy.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

A LEE-SHORE 

T HE August sun was hot upon the pavements, 
the murmur of the City came in through open 
windows which hardly mitigated the heat ; it was the 
last case of Term and every man of the audience had 
his plans for the Vacation, if not his kit-bag already 
packed, but stuff gowns filled the benches, and Court 
57 was electric. Codlington and Another v. The Cor- 
poration of Welbury was on, and all morning the 
junior Bar, with twinkling eyes, had enjoyed the enter- 
tainment it loves best. The public were absent, an- 
ticipating nothing sporting in a case dealing with the 
purchase of land for a sewage farm by an urban 
authority, but the Bar knew its men; anything was 
possible with Old Peppercorn presiding (it was an 
appeal from the Divisional Court) ; his two colleagues 
would count for little until it came to delivering 
judgment. Sir Timothy Peppercorn had been a 
fair lawyer twenty years before; his retirement and 
pension were long overdue. Of late he had lived 
upon his reputation, a grief to his fellow judges, a 
misery to himself and to his family, a conglomeration 
of physical infirmities, prejudice, and bad temper. 
To the Bar, except to the unfortunate counsel who 
pleaded in his court, he afforded unbounded amuse- 
400 


A Lee-Shore 


401 


ment. If there was one man whom “Old Pep” de- 
tested more than another it was Sir Auberon Poyntz, 
K. C., and now, owing to the illness of one judge and 
the domestic bereavement of a second, the eminent 
leader found himself unwillingly committed to some- 
thing like a personal quarrel. Such things should not 
occur, but they do occur. It is almost as difficult to 
induce a king to abdicate as to get a judge to resign. 
The weaknesses, the scandals even, of his private 
life may be pretty generally known, his temper, his 
propensity to gamble, to exceed at table, or to gossip; 
his quarrels with his neighbours, his children, or his 
wife may be the joke of his profession ; brother justices 
may have a ludicrous byword for his ignorance of law, 
or inaccessibility to argument, but the tradition of 
English public life is sacred. A testy, emotional, 
wrong-headed or vicious old person is still assumed to 
be a just and upright judge; a freakish and spiteful 
partisan is permitted to insult His Majesty’s Ministers 
from the bench and “throw over cartloads of pre- 
cedents” because there is nobody with sufficient force 
of character to handle him as he deserves and as the 
public weal demands. 

Sir Auberon knew that he had a strong case, and 
the ears of two judges of the three ; he was admitted 
to have shown the greatest forbearance, and to have 
turned his cheek to the smiter with exemplary pa- 
tience. But a man may be pushed too far, and for 
half-an-hour he had been leading his irascible opponent 
into pitfalls, and entrapping him into false positions 
where the badness of his law, the inconsequence of 
his rulings, and the fatuity of his obiter dicta had kept 
the junior Bar upon the outer verge of decorum. For 
a while the unfortunate justice was unaware of the 

26 


402 


Who Laughs Last 

deplorable figure he was cutting ; when his eyes were 
opened his behaviour was beyond precedent. His 
colleagues to left and right ceased to attempt to in- 
fluence him, hoping that during the adjournment for 
luncheon he might regain composure. It was at this 
point, and when adjournment was imminent, that 
Mr. Bullevant Wackstraw, K. C., the leader for 
Codlington (surely instigated by the devil!) prayed 
the bench that the moneys in dispute might be paid 
into court. The motion was absurd upon the face 
of it, for a Corporation cannot rim away. Poyntz 
rose to oppose; Peppercorn, who was collecting his 
notes, and had heard nothing, cut him short by grant- 
ing his opponent’s request. 

“May it please your Ludship,” said Poyntz, ur- 
banely, well aware that his tyrant had not the slight- 
est idea of what he had done, “what is the ruling 
of the Court?” 

“As prayed,” riposted the judge, whilst his fellows 
on either side whispered their objections in vain. 

“I presume that your Ludship will accept the 
cheque of the Welbury Borough Accountant drawn 
upon the Borough Treasurer?” 

“The Court will accept specie, or notes of the Bank 
of England,” replied Peppercorn, “and the money 
must be paid into court before this case opens 
to-morrow.” 

The Town Clerk touched the arm of Mr. Samuel 
Winterbourne, who was beside him. “We may rely 
on you?” 1 

“You may,” replied Mr. Samuel in a whisper, 
and after an infinitesimal hesitation, which the other 
did not notice, but which to himself seemed of at least 
a minute’s duration, the thing was done. Pride in 


A Lee-Shore 


403 


the name of Winterbournes had carried him over 
some crucial moments, but never anything like this. 
Billy, sitting beside him, keenly observant behind an 
unmoved face, felt the muscle in his brother’s arm 
swell and relax. Of course the demand was out- 
rageous, due to a momentary lapse of temper in a 
good man (Wackstraw), who, knowing that he had a 
bad case, yearned to score, and wanted his lunch. 
The niling was an act of spite, one of those blows 
which an irritated judge will occasionally aim at in 
irritating counsel through his client; an abuse of 
authority. But there was no alternative: the money 
must be found, although the amount was large and 
the notice of the briefest. An appeal ad misericordiam 
was not to be thought of ; there was the repute of the 
Concern at stake. But it was a most awkward con- 
junction of circumstances, far more awkward than 
any one but Mr. Samuel knew. 

Men about him began to move; the sitting was 
suspended, he sat for a moment considering his next 
step. Were Phibbs & Godolphinson up to this? 
Could he lean upon them for once? 

In the previous course of this story the names of 
Phibbs & Godolphinson, Bankers, Lombard Street, 
have cropped up once and again. The reader may 
recall a disagreement between Mr. Samuel and his 
father about them, but I fear that the disagreements 
of these two gentlemen have been too frequent for 
one more, or one less, to have left its impression. 
Yet this difference was of more moment than most, 
for it resulted in the Concern retaining Messrs. Phibbs 
& Godolphinson as its London agents. They and 
their predecessors had acted in this capacity for over 
a century; such business as Winterbournes wished 


404 


Who Laughs Last 

transacted for them in London was done through 
Phibbs & Godolphinson. Country clients who re- 
quired London credits, foreign drafts which must 
be met at maturity in the City, London solicitors 
who preferred the exchange of cash against title- 
deeds to be made in Town, for such emergencies a 
running balance was habitually left in Phibbs’s 
hands. Mr. Samuel knew that the amount was un- 
usually large at the moment, for the first instalment 
of the Wentworth capital had just been remitted by 
Winterbournes to their agents to the order of Masson. 
Nor was this the only considerable sum lying in their 
hands. In fact, upon that day in August, Mr. Samuel 
for the first time in his life shivered to think how much 
was at stake upon the solvency of a single house; for, 
whatever his father might hold, his own opinion of 
Phibbs & Godolphinson had been undergoing a change 
for years past, and he would willingly, had his father 
consented, have placed the Winterbourne agency in 
stronger hands. He hoped for the best. “Come 
along, Wilbraham. ” They took a taxi to the City. 

All human institutions, from the Holy Roman Em- 
pire to the latest Rubber Company, and from the 
House of Lords to a house of cards, climb, flourish, 
and topple in obedience to immutable law. Had they 
been in harmony with their environments they would 
have stood until the crack of doom, and neither the 
revolutionary hand of a Bonaparte, nor of a Liberal 
Government, nor a winding-up order, nor the hand of 
Ethel Winifred, nursemaid, could have disturbed 
their inherent stabilities. 

This is not claimed as original philosophy, but 
merely as a re-statement of a proposition generally 
accepted in the abstract, but frequently neglected in 


A Lee-Shore 


405 


the particular. One may go farther and say that 
few things fall to the first push, or yield to pressure 
from one direction; this is a complicated universe, 
and visible effects are often due to recondite causes. 

Mr. Samuel, for instance, had never heard of 
Algernon Phibbs, nor of the Consolidated Bank of 
Denver, Tacoma. He was on his way to learn some- 
thing of both, but when alighting from his cab in 
Lombard Street the first edition of the Westminster 
Gazette was pushed under his nose with a “ 'Ere y’ are, 
sir, great benk smesh in ’Merica, Cashier blows ’is 
brains aht, President cuts ’is froat!” he pushed past, 
unconcerned with news which he supposed to have 
no bearing upon his present anxieties. 

Like other London thoroughfares Lombard Street 
is changing its face. Its buildings grow taller, huger, 
and fewer, brick is succeeded by stone, granite gives 
way to marble, giant corporations, fire offices, amal- 
gamations, and accretions shoulder out the smaller 
private banks. One of the last of the latter was 
Phibbs & Godolphinson’s; it looked what it was, an 
anachronism, torpid, dirty, slow, and old, but emin- 
ently, oh, supereminently respectable. If it did but 
little business it was supposed to do well what it did. 
As its means had never been questioned they were 
assumed to be ample. There it stood, a doddered 
old trunk, once vital, now, and for long past, upheld 
by some kind of vis inertice, awaiting an external 
influence to bring it down. 

Mr. Samuel pushed the swing-doors and stepped 
into the dingy, ill-lit, outer room, a place he had en- 
tered many hundreds of times before without being 
struck, as he was struck that day, with a sense of 
moribund desolation. He turned to the Country 


406 


Who Laughs Last 

Department and addressed the clerk who usually 
attended to his business; the man, who was bent and 
old (all Phibbs’s staff were old), turned to him a face 
of such pallid apprehension as sent a chill through 
him, despite the heat of the day. 

“Oh, Mr. Winterbourne, so you have heard the 
news too?” 

“No. What news? Here, take me into Mr. Phibbs 
at once.” 

“I doubt if he will see you, sir, but I ’ll try.” He 
pushed a dull glass door into an inner room, and a 
minute later held it open for Mr. Samuel, beckoning 
with a face like a mute’s at a funeral. 

Mr. Phibbs, a bald, thin little man in black, who 
wore collars like those affected by the late Mr. Glad- 
stone, made an attempt to rise, but subsided with a 
groan, motioning his visitors to chairs. His hand 
shook like a leaf. 

“What is all this?” asked Mr. Samuel, his heart 
sinking. 

“My boy! My poor boy!” whimpered the other, 
and wept softly. 

“Eh, what? I assure you of my sympathy, Mr. 
Phibbs. Very sorry for you, very. Perhaps, under 
the circumstances, I had better see Mr. Godolphin- 
son.” 

“No good! He is more unnerved than I am. 
Quite — well — useless! We are pulling up, Mr. Sam- 
uel. Stopping. Yes, it has come to that.” 

11 What? You don’t say ” 

“Yes,” murmured the other plaintively, dabbing 
his eyes with a many-coloured silk bandanna. “Fact 
is, we have sustained such losses of late, and what with 
one thing and another (it will all be told you at our 


A Lee-Shore 


407 


first meeting) we can carry on no longer. My poor 
boy’s death, under the painful circumstances — here” 
he patted an American cable — “but you must have 
seen it; they are crying it in the street.” 

Mr. Samuel remembered somewhere at the back 
of his head an old story of an unsatisfactory young 
Phibbs, whose eccentricities in his father’s bank had 
compelled the firm to dispense with his services. But 
this was thirty years and more ago. He was now 
to learn that in the States to which he had been sent 
this man had risen to a position of trust in a Western 
bank; from this point he had reopened communica- 
tions with his father, and had induced him to speculate 
in American Securities under his directions. From 
small and tentative beginnings the gamble had grown 
to proportions which the London House had never 
contemplated, but were unable to control. During 
the last few weeks everything had been going against 
them. Their American partner, son and agent, in- 
cessant in his demands for “cover,” had at length 
written to his father a despairing farewell, confessing 
to gigantic frauds upon the Western bank of which 
he was the guiding influence, and to misappropriation 
of the English remittances. Close upon the heels 
of this distressing communication had come the cable 
telling of his death by his own hand. 

Samuel’s big, smooth face grew as hard as marble. 

“And you have known, or at least foreseen, this 
since ?” 

“Saturday at closing-time. Oh, we have exhausted 
every resource. The raising of the bank rate on 
Friday was a very nasty knock, but putting it up again 
to-day — you can understand! No possibility of get- 
ting assistance or accommodation, you know. And 


40 8 


Who Laughs Last 

everybody calling upon us for cover,” the speaker 
added in an undertone, speaking to himself. Mr. 
Samuel’s mouth grew grim. 

“Oh, you have been at that too, on this side? ” 

“A trifling account, I assure you; what would you 
have had us to do? We had to make a show, we 
were compelled to keep the ball rolling.” He waggled 
helpless hands before winding them in the silk, to keep 
them still, as Billy thought. 

“You received our Saturday’s remittance? Natur- 
ally. Has Mr. Masson applied? ” 

“An hour since. He — he,” the speaker hesitated, 
“he opened a deposit account, or rather, I should say, 
left it at call for a day or two.” 

“And you allowed him?” The Winterbourne face 
was growing truculent. 

“Er — yes, I did. Possibly I was remiss, wrong 
even, but what could I — ? Between you and me, 
Mr. Winterbourne, the person being a stranger to 
us, and without any preferential claim upon our 
sympathy — you understand, we, that is to say my 
partner, who was in at the time, er — was rather look- 
ing to that amount to make a respectable dividend. 
One, sir, in which you, as our principal creditor, 
will participate.” 

“You hear that, Wilbraham? Make a note of it 
at once. Now, Mr. Phibbs, listen to me. What you 
have just told my brother and me is a confession of 
fraud. F,r,a,u,d, fraud, do you hear? And as 
such it shall certainly be dealt with by a jury. Hold 
your noise, sir, and attend! Unless you pay that 
money over to Mr. Masson this day ” 

“Good Lord ! Mr. Winterbourne, it was with your 
firm in view that ” 


A Lee-Shore 


409 


“Sir, you are insulting me and exposing yourself. 
Get that sum-at-call in bank-notes and lay them on 
his table. Don’t tell me it is not on the premises! 
I will sit over it until Masson comes. Now, Wilbra- 
ham, into a taxi and off to Southampton Row and get 
your friend here. I give you thirty minutes.” 

The old lawyer was enjoying his steak and potatoes 
in his private office when Billy was announced; he 
arose, extending his hand, a warm and almost tender 
smile upon his features. 

“Yes, you must needs follow up your letter! I 
understand. Oh, you need not look quite so anxious, 
Mr. Wilbraham. From me you have only — But, 
I beg your pardon! Has anything happened?” 

“Come with me, quick; my taxi is at the door. 
I ’ll tell you all whilst we are on the way.” He 
plunged into the circumstances. 

“Your brother has stood my friend, Mr. Wilbraham. 
There is sterling stuff in Mr. Samuel, as you have 
already discovered, I make no doubt. He knows 
nothing of your engagement? So I imagined. You 
were waiting my — what shall we call it? — sanction, 
let us say. Then his action is purely disinterested. 
And the time, priceless to him, on such a day as this, 
is almost a greater sacrifice to my friendship than the 
dividend.” 

“Sam is all right,” said Billy, an encomium worth 
several hundred per cent, above its face value. 

They found Mr. Samuel guarding the small table 
in the banker’s private room, Mr. Phibbs hunched 
silently in his chair, a pile of bank-notes in a rubber 
ring between them. 

“Tell them, Masson,” said Sam. Mr. Masson 
told, signing a cheque for the amount, and having 


4io 


Who Laughs Last 

secured his property in an inner pocket, gravely 
shook hands and left. 

The two Winterbournes followed him, hearing as 
they crossed the outer office the order given: 11 Close 
the doors." 

Masson was saved, but more remained to do. 
There was Winterbournes itself to think for! The 
position of a country bank whose London agents 
have stopped is always a delicate one. Whether the 
actual amount in the hands of the defaulters is 
much or little must be a matter of conjecture 
until the accounts between them are made up. But, 
in the meantime, who is going to trust them? 
To take them over? Hold them up? Protect their 
name? The fallen firm was the rope by which the 
Welbury Concern was attached to the money market, 
its avenue of communication, the artery through which 
the circulation of the medium of exchange flowed be- 
tween its provincial and metropolitan connections. 
To have the least, the most temporary, check to its 
business is detrimental to a bank. A banker’s reputa- 
tion, like a woman’s, must be above suspicion; it can- 
not bear the faintest breath of dubiety. And no one 
knew this better than did Mr. Samuel, who, owing 
to the caprice of one of His Majesty’s judges, had a 
very large sum to find at a few hours’ notice, at a time 
when it behoved him to keep large reserves of gold 
at every branch, and an extra supply in the Welbury 
strong-room; at a moment, too, when the funds of his 
house were locked up in a huge overdraft granted to 
the Corporation of his town. Solvent? Certainly 
he was, if he could get a week to turn himself round. 
But to be jumped upon by every one, from all sides, 
simultaneously was crushing. 


A Lee-Shore 


41 1 

Upon the pavement outside he turned to his com- 
panion, who had seen and heard what had passed in 
a deeply-interested silence. The ruined Phibbs had 
bowed to him at his entrance, had bowed again at 
his leaving, but had throughout addressed himself 
to his brother. Samuel Winterbourne was the man, 
nobody else counted. Billy watched, waited, possess- 
ing himself, aware of momentous happenings, unsure 
of his ground, therefore silent. “Wilbraham, this 
is extremely awkward. I never remember a more 
awkward business. ... I . . . hardly know where 
to turn.” 

Billy glanced up in surprise. Here was a new 
tone in his brother’s voice; almost a cry for help in 
it. Samuel saw farther and knew more than he; 
knew enough to be thoroughly afraid. If Sam funked 
things must be pretty rotten. 

“What can I do?” 

“Nothing! I must get backing, and” — glancing 
at his watch — “everybody will be at lunch. No, 
there would be no use in my sending you back to 
Welbury; whatever is to be done there we shall have 
time for to-night. ” 

A newspaper boy sped past them upon one roller 
skate. “Second ’Dishun! — Speshall! — Pennick in 
America, more benks break. Another sooicide!” 

“Come and get something to eat,” suggested Billy. 
Sam regarded him with surprise, but accepted the 
suggestion. 

“The fellow has nerve,” he thought. “I suppose 
he knows what this might mean to any country bank 
except Winterbournes?” 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


DIVERSE MEN, DIVERSE IDEALS 

M R. XERXES Y. SCHLINCK was sitting in 
his rooms in a second-rate London boarding- 
house : humble quarters for such greatness ; a monarch 
in exile. Nobody knew that he was there; the plain 
John J. Smith upon the visitor’s book did not give 
him away. Twice daily he went for his letters to 
the Surrey side, to the address of a lady in reduced 
circumstances, housekeeper of a block of offices used 
by people in the hop-trade, who was quite incurious, 
and if she had been otherwise had never heard of 
the Boss. It was early in August, the American had 
finished breakfast, had collected and read his first 
delivery, and was thoughtfully considering the situ- 
ation. It was two months since he had dropped 
out of the world of business. His yacht lay at Corfu. 
He had been seen at Salamanca, at Rome, at Cairo, 
had been heard of in Finland and Lahore. He had 
never left London or been farther west than his 
favourite Turkish baths. He was taking a rest cure. 
He had neither bought nor sold, nor had a dollar’s 
worth of stock to his name, yet no living man upon 
the surface of the globe had influenced so profoundly 
the course of business during those eight weeks as 
had he. By the withdrawal of his own and his 
412 


Diverse Men, Diverse Ideals 413 


partner’s capitals from the service of the trading- 
community in the States he had created and was 
maintaining a hard-money famine, the effects of 
which were far-reaching and disastrous. ’Tis the 
last straw, as we know, that breaks the camel’s back: 
under ordinary conditions it is probable that the 
hoarding of thirty-five or forty millions of the gold 
of the world for eight weeks could have been got over 
by a moderate raising of the bank rate and the con- 
sequent curtailment of loans. There might have 
been stringency, hardship even, the volume of business 
would have been diminished, and certain over-engaged 
or weak-backed houses might have fallen, but there 
would have been no panic. It was the genius of 
Schlinck to have detected the psychological moment 
when, speculation having been carried to unparalleled 
lengths, the withdrawal of such an intrinsically small 
amount of currency would produce a general collapse. 

“Es stimmt, ” he muttered, for the man was of 
German extraction, and had passed strenuous years 
among the “Dutch” Pennsylvanians; “I reckon 
it sort of pans out. Here are whole States reduced 
to barter. A currency of tin checks is running in 
Alabama. The largest employer in St. Louis has had 
to give a sworn guaranty to his bank that he is only 
drawing the amount of his pay-sheet (produced and 
certified). Yet that man has a big balance to credit. 
St. Paul and Minneapolis are knifing one another 
on the side- walks for specie. (They were never 
friendly in my time.) The pard (his unnamed but 
implicitly-trusted partner) ciphers that it is time to 
operate. I guess I am the best judge of that. The 
coupons are pretty much on this side by now. There 
are n’t many buyers for cash in the States this 


414 


Who Laughs Last 

morning. Guess I ’ll dress the part and take a pasear 
round after lunch and see what may be offering.” 
He patted an empty hip-pocket from habit. “There ’s 
points about this slow little island ; a man need n’t 
go heeled in London. God’s country is the location 
for road-agents. ” 

He sharpened a pencil, sent a messenger-boy with 
a note to his broker, and began the campaign by 
emptying his pockets, glancing over and tearing 
across such papers as were in his phrase “dead-heads. ” 
Most had been treated in this manner when the great 
man found a crumpled scrap of glazed foreign note; 
he unfolded and read as follows: 

“Cosmopolitan private SnqulrE ^Bureau. Xon&on, Paris, 
IRew l^ork, anD Vienna. 

197 Rue Benjamin Franklin, Paris. 

20 Ju — 19 — . 

“Sir, — Acting upon your instructions we have the 
honour to report that the person as to whom you 
requested us to procure information is Mr. Wilbraham 
de Savigny-Conyers Winterbourne, an Englishman, 
until lately a lieutenant in an infantry regiment at 
Aldershot, from which he resigned for unknown 
reasons, having no ascertainable debts or other en- 
tanglements. Our correspondent upon the spot 
assures us that he was popular with his mess, hunted 
regularly, and must have had private means. 

“Mr. W. de S.-C. W. is the second son of Abraham 
Winterbourne, Esq., J. P., of the Hornbeams, Wel- 
bury, East Wessex, senior partner in Mordaunt, 
Wentworth & Winterbourne, Bankers, Welbury, 
an old-established and — ” (As to that I guess I 


Diverse Men, Diverse Ideals 415 


should be able to nose out as much as Pinkerton him- 
self.) “Mr. W. de S.-C. W., at the time when we 
received your valued instructions, was residing, 
and had already resided for about a month, at Chateau 
Laruns, the property of Conway Pennegwent, Esq., 
an Englishman, near Callouris in the Var. He has 
since returned to Welbury in East Wessex, England, 
and on 30th ult. was gazetted to a partnership in the 
bank mentioned above. — We have the honour to be, 
sir, your obedient servants, 

“Fraenckel Milne & Chappuis.” 

Mr. Schlinck read to the end, then sticking his 
hands deeply into his trouser pockets he extended 
his legs and sat back, his muscular lips at play with 
his cigar, now permitting it to hang pendulously 
over his chin, now erecting it in such wise that it 
tickled the tip of his nose and again making it revolve 
in circles. “Snakes,” said he at last, “I don’t get 
much ahead on him. A British private banker, is he? 
That sort is a darkish horse, usually a two-forty 
and fit to run, but there is no knowing from the out- 
side. Who are their London agents? I should 
hear something in the City.” 

How various is the world of men! Across the sea 
that we traverse in five days, or less, a people of like 
speech and appearance to ourselves, but yesterday 
overweening in confidence, were that afternoon 
(their morning) panting, staring, darting aimlessly 
hither and thither, crying piteously as the rabbit 
cries when the pursuing weasel has him below the 
ear ; for them the panic had gripped and was bleeding 
white. This man’s life’s earnings trickled through 
his fingers, that other’s fortune trebled without an 


416 


Who Laughs Last 

effort upon his part. Factories slowed down and 
stopped for want of their raw materials; furnaces 
were blown out; bewildered tradesmen were stricken, 
nor knew who struck, nor why. Suspicion was mutual 
and universal, a blight had fallen upon the most acute 
and enterprising of human communities. Wealthy 
men, who knew themselves wealthy, were unable 
to get at their money; their pockets might be full, 
but their hands were paralysed, nor was there any 
to help or to heed, for all were similarly affected. And 
meanwhile in quiet country places babes were born 
and old men buried, and maids wedded, and the 
people of the British Isles for the most part knew 
nothing of the trouble. Millicent, brooding over 
the event of the previous day, marvelling at its ex- 
traordinary nature, watching her life’s blossom slip 
from its sheath and expand odorous petals in the 
sunbeams of love, knew nothing of the possible vicissi- 
tudes of her fortune, nor thought for a moment of 
her lover as of a man hard bested, keeping a bold 
young face to a menacing world that hung above 
him imminent, blind, irresistible, like some slow- 
moving, toppling wave, he helpless the while. 

And other lives of other men were being lived out 
to their culminations. In a gallery in Bond Street 
old Pennegwent was holding his little court. His 
one-man show had closed its doors that day; it had 
been the event of the season from the point of view 
of Art. His colour, his line, his definition, his sense 
of clean southern sun and heat had taken the West 
End by storm. “That is how I see it,” said every 
one who knew the South. “This man has the sharp 
hard touch; no woolliness, no atmosphere; it always 
jumps to your eye like that.” The leading Art 


Diverse Men, Diverse Ideals 417 


critic of the day laid it down that Mr. Pennegwent 
had succeeded where all had hitherto failed ; he could 
paint olives turning up the whites of their eyes to the 
mistral, steel-grey, pitilessly-running seas and flying 
dust, and could, with equal felicity, render the breath- 
less, palpitating heats of southern Augusts, the pow- 
dered, drooping leaf, the white walls that exhaled 
warmth in your face, the thick, opaque, unsparkling 
blue above you, insolent, intolerable. Pennegwent 
had the secret of these, as had no other master of the 
brush, ancient or modern. The Studio reproduced 
him in colour. His prices rose week by week. The 
Jews saw money in him and cleared his ragged old 
portfolios at ridiculous figures. Never had the man 
been in such favourable circumstances, financial or 
social. And, such is a soldier’s honour; the Major 
would have cheerfully pitched his pass-book over 
Westminster Bridge, and started afresh penniless, 
to have felt the hand of the President of that long- 
forgotten court-martial in his, and heard him say, 
“Pennegwent, we did you an injustice.” But there 
are crooked things which never do come straight in 
this life; if every wrong were righted, and every 
love satisfied, where were the uses of heaven? 


CHAPTER XXXV 

PERSONALITY APPEALS 

“NTOW, Wilbraham, ” said Samuel, tipping the 
1 N waiter, “you understand what we have to 
do? Choose a London agent for Winterbournes. 
I could have wished a week, or even a fortnight, to 
make inquiries, but any one of the bigger Joint- 
Stocks will do. Let us give the preference to the 
Incorporated Bank of London and Southern Eng- 
land.” Samuel was himself again; his brother, 
supposing that it was “all right,” followed his part- 
ner’s confident step through the lofty mahogany doors 
beneath the granite portico and found himself among a 
quarter of an acre of clerks at work behind metal grilles. 
Yes, the manager was in and disengaged. The card 
was taken by a liveried porter, and after an unex- 
plained detention of, say, three minutes, which he 
could see Samuel silently resenting, the two were taken 
in a lift to an upper floor and shown into a handsomely- 
furnished little room looking out upon the graveyard 
of St. Euphemia the Less. A dark, clean-shaven man 
of thirty, whose eyes twinkled above an unmoved 
mouth, offered his hand to each in turn and motioned 
them to chairs. Samuel came to the point without 
preliminary. 


418 


Personality Appeals 419 

“You may not know me personally — I am Sam- 
uel Winterbourne; this is my brother and partner, 
Wilbraham Winterbourne — Mordaunt, Wentworth 
& Winterbourne, you know.” The dark, reserved 
young man, who was sitting back in an elbow- 
chair twisting the card with white, well-kept fingers, 
nodded urbanely at each piece of information, but 
did not appear to be uncomfortably shy in the 
presence of such greatness. “You probably have 
heard of the stoppage of Phibbs. ” Mr. Samuel may 
have thought he was imparting information, but 
news of this kind flies and the manager had already 
heard. 

“Phibbs & Godolphinson, ” pursued Mr. Samuel, 
“have acted as our agents time out of mind. We are 
now compelled to choose another house and are dis- 
posed to give your company the first refusal. ” 

The dark young man twiddling the card received 
the intimation with self-control: he did not arise 
and offer his hand a second time, or thank his visitor 
with effusion, or thank him at all. He murmured a 
non-committal “Yes” and awaited further informa- 
tion. As Mr. Samuel offered none he cleared his 
throat quietly and said that he was unfortunately 
not acquainted with the circumstances of Mordaunts. 
Had they published a balance-sheet? No! That was 
a pity. A little thing of that sort, certified by a good 
chartered accountant, was useful at a time like this. 
No doubt Mr. Winterbourne had figures to show him? 
Mr. Samuel had none, and under the circumstances, 
the stoppage having occurred an hour ago. . . . The 
manager agreed that anything detailed and definite 
was impossible; still, from his point of view, Mr. 
Winterbourne could understand. . . . There was 


420 


Who Laughs Last 

evidently a stop in the man’s mind. “What do 
you stand to lose by them? ’’ 

“We cannot say until we know what they mean 
paying,’’ which was fencing and the young man’s 
next question came more quickly. “What is your 
balance there to-day? So! ’’ the amount evidently 
surprised him. “And what do you want us to do?’’ 

Samuel tabled his requirements, including the 
heavy payment into Court. The secretary’s eyes 
twinkled no longer; they were boring and hard, his 
mouth tightened into a small round purse, one of 
those old-fashioned purses which you closed with a 
string in such wise that nothing within could come 
out. Mr. Samuel saw and anticipated. 

“Our heaviest account, our only heavy account, 
indeed, is the overdraft which we have for some time 
been allowing Welbury Corporation. ” He mentioned 
its amount — a thumping amount; how he wished it 
were less! “You see we anticipate floating a loan 
as soon as this stringency relaxes. Naturally we 
should place it in your hands.’’ 

The manager dismissed the idea. His directors 
thought municipal borrowings were being carried 
too far. Samuel plunged into details of the rateable 
value of Welbury. “Absolute security, I assure 
you!” The other’s attention wandered. When his 
caller paused he put a home question. “Your con- 
sols, Mr. Winterbourne, what do they stand at on 
your books at this moment? If I accompanied you 
down to Welbury by this afternoon’s train, and made 
my investigation, what should I find?” 

“They cost us no to 114,” began Samuel. The 
dark young man arose quietly. “I think I need not 
detain you longer, Mr. Winterbourne; I could not 


Personality Appeals 421 

recommend my directors to take this matter up with- 
out a more detailed audit than your circumstances, 
I mean your immediate necessities, would permit. 
As I understand your position you want a couple of 
hundred thousand at once. Sorry, but we can’t. 
May I wish you a good afternoon?” He touched 
a hand-bell; the porter opened the door, rendering 
further discussion impossible. The lift, the quarter 
acre of clerks, the portals followed, and Samuel 
Winterbourne was again in Lombard Street, a badly- 
shaken man. 

“1 should not have thought it possible,” he said. 
“ 1 wonder who that man will be. A junior of one 
of the amalgamating families by his looks; much too 
young for such a post; unsuitable; no experience; 
too abrupt. Does n’t know us, evidently. I will 
give it to the bank of West Anglia; and, I say, Wil- 
braham — ” Billy detected a tiny tremor in his 
brother’s normally confident voice. “ I ’ll run in here ; 
the manager knows me, you see He does n’t know 
you, and this is not exactly a time for personal intro- 
ductions; you cannot help things ” 

“And don’t want to hinder. Go ahead, Sam! 
I ’ll wait outside, ” said the younger man, catching on 
and speaking, cheerily, though feeling anxious. 

“Just so. Knew you would understand. Let me 
see him alone. Two of us would look a little pointed. ” 
The man had never begged before and his first rebuff 
had been a shock to his self-confidence. But his 
second attempt fared no better. The person to whom 
he applied was elderly, plump, and well-groomed. 
So long as he kept his mouth shut and his hands 
quiet you might have accepted him as a gentleman; 
at his first sentence, or gesticulation, the illusion was 


422 


Who Laughs Last 

dissipated. His nails gave him away. Mr. Spend- 
wayze had entered his bank forty years earlier as 
a junior clerk, and had grown grey in the same service. 
His position was the result of temperament and con- 
stitution. This was a man who had never knocked 
up, nor fallen into unpunctual or slip-shod ways. 
He was accurate, attentive, ingratiatory, and inde- 
fatigable. As ledger-clerk, counter-clerk, branch- 
manager, and inspector of branches, later as assistant, 
then as Chief Secretary, he had always been ready to 
fill a vacant post at a moment’s notice, and owed his 
promotion to the disinclination of richer men to 
irksome confinement and drudgery. Sons of the 
high contracting houses whose amalgamation had 
formed the concern had preferred hunting, yachting, 
foreign travel or big game. Spendwayze, who, by 
this time, had got into his hands the threads of the 
whole business, the indispensable Spendwayze, came 
into the Managership. He was essentially the man 
for a quiet time. Lombard Street he knew, and 
Clapham, and Felixstowe, and being at bottom a 
junior clerk still, of pleasant address, and ingratiatory 
manners, was flustered at the climbing bank-rate. 
Figures he understood, and balance-sheets, but less 
of men. Knowing his own inner deficiencies he was 
for sitting tight, saying little, and doing nothing. 
He expressed no opinion of his own. He would re- 
present what Mr. Winterbourne had confided to him 
to his directors. Mr. Winterbourne rose; he had 
wasted twenty priceless minutes upon a timid fool, 
and had been repaid with platitudes and the pressure 
of a soft, damp hand. 

Billy, upon the kerb at the corner of Abchurch 
Lane, awaited his brother’s return. The street was 


Personality Appeals 423 

full, but unexcited. Except the newsboys nobody 
ran, nobody screamed, nobody stared. Things might 
be rocky, but would come right in a day or two. Yan- 
kees seemed a bit rattled, but that was no reason why 
the City should get squealing, don’tcherknow. Billy 
heard the case put thus by two City men at his elbow. 
He tacitly agreed. The youngster was typical, he 
appreciated the point of view, sharing the enormous, 
unplumbed optimism of his race. Of course (“0/ 
course ”) there would {could) be no panic. This was 
London. 

“Hullo, Billy! what are you doing here? Had 
lunch? Waiting for Samuel?’* It was Mrs. Winter- 
bourne, who had just emerged from the doors of the 
Bank of West Anglia, where, as Billy recollected, she 
kept her account. He said something indifferent, 
but the lady looked him straight in the face; she 
was an able woman. “ ‘Why so wan and pale, 
young lover?* eh? Anything up?’’ 

“Not much, mother ’’ 

“What is this bank that has gone pop to-day? No 
concern of yours, I hope? Not your agents? You 
don’t mean it! Sorry! Do you stand to lose 
much?” 

“A bit,” replied Billy, stoically, but his mother 
read him. 

“How much?” 

“ Must n’t tell,” grinned Billy, cheerfully. He had 
learnt a banker’s first lesson, to say “No,” but had 
yet to master the rudiments of diplomacy, to truth- 
fully mislead, to discuss without saying anything. 
His mother read more. 

“ Billy, you can’t humbug me. You are hit 
badly. Don’t say a thing! I know it I Is it very 


424 Who Laughs Last 

bad? My God! And Sam is in there. I saw his 
back. What is he doing?” 

“Look here, mother! You are going a heap too 
fast. I am not going to. . . . You should n’t. . . . 
It is n’t cricket!” 

“Righto! Mum’s the word, Billy.” She stood 
in earnest thought — some decision pending. Her 
handsome, vivid face hardened as it used to harden 
in her hunting days when the first flighters had turned 
up an “impossible” place, and she had come up with 
a wet sail and led over it with her gallant young 
mouth set in a clear frozen smile. “Oh, my poor 
Abraham! it ’ll kill you!” she whispered. “There 
is a down train at three, I think. So-long, Billy!” 

She was gone. Samuel came forth stiff er and 
crosser than ever. He could n’t understand it. Two 
more bank managers did he interview with equally 
unsatisfactory results — a Scotsman and a Jew. It 
was the same story. Where was his balance-sheet? 
To what point had he written down his consols? The 
rateable value of a little town in the Midlands did not 
appeal to a Londoner. And time was running on; 
a disagreeable incident had grown by successive 
stages to a mortifying check, a serious dilemma, an 
incipient disaster — yes, to possible ruin ! The bank- 
rate had raised again since the forenoon and stood 
at 8 per cent. ; there was no precedent for such action 
since Black Monday in the ’66. Still there was no 
visible trouble in the City at present, that is to say, 
no run upon any institution, no crowds, no row ; but 
on the Stock Exchange was wild uproar one min- 
ute and icy silence the next, whilst men held their 
breaths and listened to the hammer ; and in the face 
of every bank manager that he interviewed was 


Personality Appeals 425 

the same determination: “What we have we ’ll 
hold.” 

Upon such a day, the more importunately you beg 
and the better the terms you offer, the less you get. 
You frighten the man to whom you appeal, your 
urgency warns, your desperation hardens his heart. 
Mr. Samuel knew better than to run about offering 
10 per cent, for accommodation; no one offers such 
terms save he to whom it is unwise to lend upon any. 
It was an occasion for the personal touch. There 
were men of a tithe of his resources getting loans that 
afternoon, but they were men whom the lenders knew, 
hunted with, dined with, joked with, dealt with, 
men of appealing personalities. Mr. Samuel’s was 
not an appealing personality. It came home to him 
that his standards were not those of the men in whose 
hands lay the fate of Winterbournes, that the austerity 
of a life spent in keeping other men straight did not 
count when it should have counted. Few men in 
the City knew him, fewer (for some cause) trusted him. 
None liked him. There was not a man in London 
whom he could poke in the ribs and say, “Old chap, 
you must pull me through! ” It was a juncture 
when Freemasonry counts. Sam was not of the 
craft. 

By a quarter to four his face had grown slightly 
haggard. He would not own himself beaten; he 
struggled on, but could no longer see his way out. 
The brothers were standing at the corner of Lothbury. 

“Where next?” asked B.illy. A man in a soft felt 
Tiroler and lounge-suit of blue serge half turned and 
glanced sidelong at the speaker. Samuel did not 
reply immediately, and whilst he hesitated a broker’s 
clerk from the “House” tripped across the street 


426 


Who Laughs Last 

holding up four fingers interrogatively. The man 
in the Tiroler cocked his cigar sideways and said: 

“N" York Centrals no lower than that? Wait 
five minutes and try again at three-and-a-quarter. ” 
The broker left. Samuel still considered his next 
move. The Tiroler hat turned upon Billy, staring 
him full in the face, then, shifting his position, seemed 
to examine his ears ! 

“My mark! Jee! ’Tis the mahn! Sir — Mistah 
Winterbourne, I believe. Anyway, you are the 
hayseed dude. Naow, what can I do for you? I 
guessed we should meet again. You thought not. 
Xerxes Y. Schlinck, sir, makes no mistakes; there 
are no flies upon Zerk Schlinck. No, sir! Present 
me to your friend, I beg!” Billy’s breeding stood 
by him. He accepted the situation with easy affa- 
bility. 

“This is Mr. Schlinck, Samuel. Mr. Schlinck, 
my brother and partner, Mr. Samuel Winterbourne.” 

“ De-lighted to make your acquaintance, sir! Your 
brother did me quite the finest service that ever a man 
did for a stranger, sir. Mordaunt, Wentworth & 
Winterbourne is your firm; that ’s so? Yes! I 
carry these little things in my head. You are country 
bankers at Welburn, or is it Wei worth? — Welbury ! 
I thank you! Naow, gentlemen, you have found 
me on a fortunate day. I am operating; I am 
playing a lone hand. I am buying gilt-edged Amer- 
icans to beat the band. May I take you on board? 
Yes, I mean what I say. Your brother, sir — ” 
He was for launching out into further explanations, 
but Billy would have moved on; Samuel, who knew — 
as who in the walks of finance did not? — the name 
and the fame of Boss Schlinck, was simmering with 


Personality Appeals 427 

sudden hopes. The drowner's clutch at a straw 
tightened his muscles. 

“Mr. Schlinck, can I — we — have five minutes’ 
talk with you — in private? ” 

“Why, certainly, sir. And, where upon God’s 
earth so private as just here? There are you two, 
and about two more in this Old Country, who know 
that I am in Europe. I am listening.” 

Poor Samuel told his off -repeated tale. By this 
time he was telling it unconvincingly. As a beggar 
he did not improve with practice, and the humiliation 
of being compelled by the pressure of circumstances 
to beg from a stranger, whilst standing at the kerb’s 
edge, got sorely upon his nerves. The grim sooty 
wall of the Bank of England behind him seemed 
to have ears; he suspected the passing vendor of 
bananas of curiosity. If Welbury should get to 
know of this ! His eyes wandered, watching for eaves- 
droppers; he marshalled his facts ill, using terms, 
though he knew it not, which were Greek to an 
American. Schlinck interrupted him twice to signal 
fresh directions to his broker, and at length turned 
full upon Billy. 

“You are side-tracked? That ’s so. You ’ll be 
ditched to-morrow. That much I understahnd ; 
the rest of your partner’s story is too English for me 
to catch on to. I sense it amounts to this: Your 
London agent has bust-up. You have to find cover — 
hard money — right smart. Yes? And your re- 
sources are locked up, not liquid? Yes? See here, 
Mister Wilbarham, I don’t know your bank; I don’t 
know your circumstances, or resources, or the rateable 
values of the township he talks about, which would 
be dollars one day and cents the next out West ; and 


428 


Who Laughs Last 

I don’t know him. But I just do know you. Is 
this true? Of your own, gen-u-ine, inside-track 
knowledge? Honest Injun, sir? ” 

“Mr. Schlinck,” said poor Billy, moistening his 
lips, “I am only just of age, and came into the firm 
three months ago, so if you ask me what I know , I 
can’t say much. But I ’ll tell you what I think, 
and believe. My brother, here, would n’t tell you 
a lie. He could n’t. We are all right, we Winter- 
bournes ; there is plenty of money in the family, but 
this smash-up of Phibbs to-day — - — ” 

“Has caught you short. I believe you , sir. You 
are my mahn, and if you say ‘back me’ I ’ll back you 
through h — 1 and out the other side. Naow?’’ 

“I do say it.” 

1 1 How much ? — and when ? ’ ’ 

“Two hundred thousand at least, and it must 
be this afternoon,” said Billy, who had mastered the 
situation by this time. 

“Done with you! Shake! — shake on it, you too, 
sir! Come along, we must jump round. ... I am 
off for the day,” he called to his approaching broker. 
“Buy all that brand that comes along at half above 
your limit. Now, gentlemen, let us see this little 
matter through. If you could have put in an after- 
noon with me on that sidewalk I would have made 
your piles before dinner. Being as it is, we must 
operate to-morrow. To-day we will put in shoring- 
up your family bank. And, by Gosh, we ’ll do it!” 

He was walking fast whilst talking, and now dived 
into the heart of the Bank of England, caught a mes- 
senger, put a card and sovereign into his hand. 
“Jump round, my son!” In a very few moments, 
the name of Schlinck being plainly the one to con- 


Personality Appeals 429 

jure with within those walls, they were in the presence 
of a great official, to whom the American was known, 
and to whom he introduced his new friends. His 
grip upon the situation was vehement, his words, 
however few or enigmatic, compelled grey-headed 
men to skip, to fly. The man who can bury and 
unearth at will three hundred tons of minted gold 
is able to bind and loose most things upon the surface 
of this planet. Leading men fell in with his plans; 
high officials adopted his point of view. Two taxis 
were admitted to the inner court and loaded with 
packages of astonishing weight in proportion to their 
size. Also with bales of Fives and Tens, crisp, white, 
never-before-used notes of the Greatest Bank upon 
earth. “Lend me a couple of your men, sir; the 
uniform is known, and carries weight, I guess. I ’d 
borrow beef-eaters from your Tower, but this is a 
time-contract, and I reckon the King's guards here 
ain’t jest under your orders.” It was done. “ Naow, 
Mr. Wilbarham, climb on board and keep her hum- 
ming. You should be down at Welbury before clos- 
ing time if your chauffeurs know their business. 
Your brother and I will just trickle round to Lombard 
Street, and if I can’t per-suade the Bank he fancies 
to take up his agency I guess I ’ll either buy a con- 
trolling interest in the blasted Corporation, or I'll 
bear the stock of the fool thing until the investor feels 
like throwing his dinner up whenever its name is 
mentioned. Quit thanking me, sir! The shekels 
in there are only half the cost of a yacht, or a house 
on the Hudson. Make the pace, chauffeurs; double 
fares if you do the forty miles under the hour. I 
pay all fines and damages. So-long! ” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 

LOVE TO THE RESCUE 

T HE leading chauffeur drove like a demoniac; 

those taxis wriggled through the City traffic not 
unrebuked, took Holborn and Oxford Street at 
illegal speeds, left Shepherd’s Bush staring. Suburbs 
appeared and slid behind them, the long straight 
stretches of the old coach-road burned beneath their 
tires, tall feathers of white dust curled aloft above 
the hedge-row elms ; constables showing stop-watches 
and brandishing note-books leapt up and were left 
gesticulating. 

“Second police-trap that, sir. D’ye think the 
dark gent meant it? Abart double fares, I mean, 
an’ demidges an’ fines an’ that?’’ 

“Certainly he did; you do it under the forty and 
you shall have the time of your life,” said Billy, his 
veins running quicksilver. The following car was 
boring into their dust with closed sashes, the two 
Bank servants jellied with terror inside, the index 
showing fifty-six. 

Mr. Samuel’s first telegram reached the bank at 
one-thirty. The resident manager, Mr. Popenjoy, 
whom we have hardly mentioned before, read it with 

43o 


Love to the Rescue 


43i 


eyes that grew big with apprehension, and then 
glanced around him like a guilty thing surprised. 

Phibbs gone ! and with all that extra-heavy balance 
in their hands! Phibbs stopped — and not a partner 
upon the premises, and an over-parted manager in 
charge — (never entrusted with much authority, you, 
knowing Mr. Sam, may be sure). Best tell the senior 
at once. Mr. Abraham Winterbourne, dozing in a 
summer-house, a handkerchief over his head to keep 
off the flies, was aroused by Mrs. Lambkin with the 
news that a gentleman from the bank was there with 
a taxi and wanted to see you, sir, special. 

“ Phibbs stopped making arrangements . — Winter- 
bourne. ” 

The Head of the Concern received the news with 
Roman composure. 

“I will come. Your arm, Popenjoy. ” No more, 
and Mr. Popenjoy afterwards confessed that the mere 
tone put heart into him. ‘‘You can’t beat the Old 
Governor for pluck. ” 

“Enter Rumour, painted all over with tongues,” 
saith an Elizabethan stage direction, but nowadays 
she has betaken herself to the telephone and gets 
around more expeditiously than in our forefathers’ 
times. Welbury had got hold of the news by early 
afternoon. The East Wessex Gazette stuck its tele- 
gram up in its office- window : 

“ Stoppage of a City Bank. Messrs. Phibbs & 
Godolphinson suspended payment to-day. Bank-rate 
8 per cent. More bank failures in States. ” 

The news was wired all over England, and sounded 
ominously to the ears of private bankers. Every 


432 


Who Laughs Last 

profession is sensitive to the misfortunes and lapses 
of its members. Have we not seen an eminent con- 
veyancer reduced to tears by the knowledge that a 
brother lawyer had lied to him in writing? That the 
letter covered communications from the fellow’s 
client, repeating and substantiating his falsehood, 
affected my friend not at all; for a layman to be un- 
truthful was regrettable, yet only what a man of the 
world might expect: “But for a solicitor, sir, for 
a man of my profession ...” (more tears). I was 
young at the time and was impressed as never before 
with the enormous cash value of mere character. 
If a lawyer must, before all things, tell the truth 
(and many do) a banker must meet his bond, and the 
failure of a private bank in Cornwall, say, sends a 
streak of goose-flesh down the spine of a private 
banker in Durham, who would not have turned a hair 
at the stoppage of a colliery; collieries do stop, “but 
a concern in my profession ! ” 

Be sure that the news was canvassed in the branches 
of the different joint-stock banks which have sprung 
up in Welbury of late years, discussed in guarded 
whispers, for nothing beyond the bare fact was known. 
Mouth, eye, and eyebrow put wordless questions — 
How would it affect Them? Their agents, y’ know. 
Must have kept a biggish balance up there, one day 
with another. Should n’t wonder if. . . . And so 
forth; surmises, and more surmises, and more sur- 
mises still. And the telephones going all the time, 
a busy afternoon for the Welbury Exchange, with 
its weary, perspiring, are-you-there girls, and the news 
transmitted to country houses six miles out, among 
others to Flinches, the seat of Viscount Anchorsdown, 
weakest, flightiest, and most talkative of men. My 


Love to the Rescue 


433 


lord had lunched at home; the landaulette was not 
in use, her ladyship being at her mother’s house in 
Town. “Gobbless-my-soul!” exclaimed the noble 
lord. “Phibbs, Phibbs, Phibbs? Why that is Win- 
terbournes’ London agent, is n’t it? That ’s bad, 
very bad, deucedly bad for Winterbournes, I should 
say. Oh, yes! Loses then the doose of a lot of 
money. S’pose they can stand it? Very old firm, 
rich people, sound people, most respectable people. 
Would n’t mind my drawing out my little bit, I 
should think. Never feel it. Thousand pities to 
make a scare and set people runnin’ to them. Think 
I ’ll just motor in and do the trick before anybody 
knows what has happened, eh? Won’t let on; no, 
it would n’t be kind, y’ know. Won’t say a word.” 
But on the road in he pulled up to talk it over with 
Mrs. Maltravers, a widow of the County set, who 
banked with Winterbournes, telling the lady what he 
was about to do, and advising her to do as she thought 
best, but on no account to spread the rumour; “so 
unkind, y’ know, to run about takin’ away a fellow’s 
good name when there may be nothin’ in it, y’ know. 
No occasion to be the least bit nervous. Now, you 
won’t tell a soul, will you? You won’t say I said 
a word? I thought it wise to tootle in to make sure 
of the fact, nothing more.” 

The lady gave the required promise and hurried 
home — she was walking — and ordered the horses 
put to. 

“Mr. Winterbourne, Lord Anchorsdown to see 
you.” Our Mr. Haynes announced the visitor and 
closed the door behind him. Instantly the babble of 
high-pitched talking began. His lordship is a tre- 
mendous chatterbox and an authority upon so many 


28 


434 


Who Laughs Last 

questions that his opinion is sought upon none. Still, 
a fool may do the devil of a lot of mischief. There was 
no man in the three counties served by Winterbournes’ 
Bank whom the Head of the Concern was less anxious 
to see. 

“Ah, Winterbourne, how are ye? I just ” 

“Well, my lord, I thank you. And how are you? 
Lovely weather, eh? Take a chair.” 

“No, no — thanks. Mustn’t trench upon the 
time of you busy men, and on a trying day, rather, 
is n’t it? Eh? What ’s this about your City friends? 
Phibbs are your friends, are n’t they? Pretty much 
your partners, eh?” 

“Certainly not; kindly don’t repeat that, Anchors- 
down. Phibbs & Godolphinson were our London 
men of business, as you would call it, nothing more. 
We have just heard of their stoppage. Something 
of it reached you, I see. I know nothing more than 
is in my son’s telegram, ” He showed it. 

“Just so — er — just so. Of course you remain 
quite unaffected.” 

“Quite,” said the Head of the Firm, firmly. 

“That ’s what I said. It is nothing at all to an — er 
— establishment of your standing and — er — resources, 
nothing ! If it were, Winterbourne, I would n’t come 
bothering you now, I swear I would n’t. You believe 
me? My position is this : I have just heard of a — a 
most unusually heavy call upon me, you know. 
Found I had not a shilling at Flinches, not a brass 
farthing to pay my tradesmen with, y’ know. So 
I just — ” The man paused lamely. Winterbourne, 
who knew him inside and out, assisted him. 

“You wish to draw. How much? Fill up your 
cheque, my lord. I will cash it for you. ” 


Love to the Rescue 


435 


“Might I just see my pass-book? Don’t think I 
have looked at the thing for months. ” 

Winterbourne touched the bell and bade make up 
Lord Anchorsdown’s account. It was placed before 
him. 

‘ 1 Three thousand odd ? This will never do ! Ridic- 
ulous to keep a sum like this lying idle. Must invest 
it, put it into something. ” 

“What would you like us to buy for you?” asked 
Winterbourne. 

“Oh — er — I won’t trouble you. Thought of run- 
ning up to Town in the morning, having a look round, 
y’ know — talk to my brokers, y’ know, eh?” He was 
filling in a cheque. “You are sure you don’t mind 
my drawing out this, eh, Winterbourne? You have 
only to say so and I ’ll — er — consider it. It is n’t 
awkward for you? Sure, now? I don’t want you to 
say afterwards ” 

“I beg you will consult your own convenience, my 
lord.” 

“Ah, very good of you, I ’m sure. Thought, y’ 
know. . . . But, 'least said.’ So that’s done,” 
pocketing the roll of crisp white notes and offering 
his hand. Mr. Winterbourne accompanied him to the 
door. A carriage stood behind his lordship’s car. 
Ladies were hurrying up the steps, Lady Tilehurst 
and Mrs. Maltravers, to whom Lord Anchorsdown 
offered his hand with a small grimace. She nodded 
meaningly and moved to the counter, her companion 
keeping close to her heels; both carried reticules and 
produced cheque-books. But the space was already 
occupied, a gentleman and a lady had paid in, and 
were watching the telling-clerk verify their slips. 
Both had opened deposit-accounts, for new pass-books 


436 


Who Laughs Last 

were being written up. “Masson!” said Winter- 
bourne; the lawyer turned and grasped the hand of 
his old friend. “Ah, how are you? Glad to find 
you at your old post again.” The lady’s back was 
resolutely kept to the Chief ; he looked, he would have 
spoken, but his voice failed ; he dropped the lawyer’s 
hand. “Who, what? — Adlla! May I ask what 
you are doing?” The tall graceful woman turned 
with blithe grace. 

“I think so, my dear. How are you? Shall we 
go into your room? Can you give Mr. Masson and 
me a cup of tea? We left London so early, you know. 
Ran up against one another at Welbury station ten 
minutes since, famished!” 

“Certainly. In one minute. Please step in there, 
I will join you.” He whispered to the telling clerk, 
glanced at the slips, and followed into the bank par- 
lour, his strong face shaken and very grave. 

1 1 My friend, you should not have done this ! Adela, 
what possessed you? Fifteen hundred! And you, 
Masson, hum, hum — We will name no amounts, 
but this is past everything! You should not! Very 
wrong!” 

“Why?” cried his wife. “Sit down, Abraham; 
there, that is better ! Have n’t I a right to do what 
I like with my own? Only heard of it in London 
this afternoon — was on my way to my brokers — 
nipped into the Tube, caught the train at Paddington, 
and here you see me! Standing by the ship, Abra- 
ham! What else would you have me do? Hadn’t 
time to sell out anything, or I ’d have done it like 
a bird — yes, pawned my jewels, spouted my frocks 
and furs, dunned my friends, anything! — any mortal 
thing for you, you old dear, you!” Her clear laugh 


Love to the Rescue 


437 


rang like a bell, clerks and customers heard it through 
the door, but her eyes were swimming, and in another 
moment her arms were about her husband. 

Masson slipped through a cautiously-opened door. 
The bank was full. The paying-out counter engaged 
three deep, the floor-space occupied by townsmen, 
small tradesmen, depositors in doubt, alarmed by the 
news, who had drifted in to hear the truth of it, with- 
out formed intentions, but with their cheque-books 
in their pockets. A telegraph-boy wriggled through. 
Mr. Popenjoy tore the envelope and read, his face 
grew bright : 

“London Provincial undertake agency, returning 
later, all right. — Winterbourne.” 

“Jove! I should just about think that is ‘all 
right.’ ” He edged through the throng, tapped the 
door of the bank parlour, and entered. “Thought 
you would like to see — ” he began, but stopped. The 
Head was at the window, the tall and handsome lady, 
whom Mr. Popenjoy had some remembrance of 
having seen in the bank seven or eight years back, 
but not since, and whom he believed to be the Mrs. 
Winterbourne of so much legend and romance, was 
standing beside him, her hand upon his shoulder. 
More motors were arriving. The old Chief took the 
telegram, wiped and fixed his glasses with deliberation, 
read and handed it back to the manager. “Quite 
satisfactory. Mr. Samuel has not wasted his time. 
Excellent people the London and Provincial. But 
what is all this outside, Mr. Popenjoy? They have 
moved on Lord Anchorsdown’s car (I don’t know what 
he is waiting for) and the police are clearing the pave- 
ment. Why, those men are in the liveries of the bank. 


438 


Who Laughs Last 

Impossible! And there comes Wilbraham! He has 
brought down specie, Popenjoy, there is no other 
possible. . . . Here, I must be seen. Throw both 
doors open, form a lane, and have the porters out to 
carry in. No excitement, you understand. And 
we will keep the bank open until half-past five. ” 

It is said that there was not one joint-stock bank 
in Welbury but had thrown out a junior clerk as 
vidette to see how Winterbournes were taking it. 
It was no more than their duties; their head offices 
would expect reports by the first delivery, if not by 
wire that night . Successive developments were noted . 
That car with blazoned panels, was n’t it the Flinches 
turn-out? And who were the ladies in the victoria? 
There was certainly a lot of business doing, of a sort, 
but unless you were inside how was a man to say 
whether it was the beginning of a run, or what? 
Then came two non- Welbury motors moving slowly 
with policemen beside them, who cleared the pave- 
ment in front of Winterbournes (a bit of stage-man- 
agement of Billy’s which he had thought out upon the 
run down and on which he is supposed to pride him- 
self unto this day). The men with the silver badges 
in the striking liveries appealed to the watchers ; an 
older clerk, detailed to verify an incredible rumour, 
scudded back to his bank with an amazing story of 
two Bank of England servants engaged in unloading 
bullion. 

“Good old Winterbourne!” exclaimed the manager 
of the Welbury Branch of the Amalgamated Counties, 
who teaches Sunday School. 

“Well, I ’m damned ! ” said his cashier, who does n’t. 
The great Oxford Dictionary shows the English 
language to be very copious, but its spoken forms 


Love to the Rescue 


439 


seem to be inadequate to express admiration and 
pleased surprise. 

Mrs. Winterbourne and Mr. Masson, over their 
tea-cups in the bank parlour, were conscious that the 
hum of conversation in the outer bank had fallen 
mute, and that the only sounds audible were the 
steady footfalls of heavy feet, as of men moving in 
unison under loads. 

“ Mr. Masson, is n’t my Billy just a little big ’un?” 
(The expression is horsey East Anglian; oh, the 
limitations of English as she is spoke !) 

“I know he is a brave and able young fellow, 
Mrs. Winterbourne, and congratulate you, and your 
husband, upon him. ” 

Seated thus, when the footfalls ceased, they heard 
the high-pitched tones of some personage of import- 
ance entreating Mr. Winterbourne to permit him to 
change his mind ; he had just discovered that he would 
be unable to go to Town in the morning, and it hardly 
seemed worth while, did it, to keep such a lump in a 
country house indefinitely? “You bankers have 
facilities, you know, which I have n’t at Flinches. 
Thanks, awfully ! most good of you. Good afternoon ! 
Good afternoon!” The man, whoever he was, was 
gone, and the bank closed for the day. Billy was 
back from making his coadjutors happy. He fol- 
lowed his father into the room, wooden-faced and 
just a little weary. A day of this kind takes it out 
of a fellow worse than a forty minutes’ burst over a 
big country, you know; you get a sort of numb, stupid 
feeling inside your head, you know (Billy). The 
lawyer and the lady rose as their host entered. Mr. 
Winterbourne entreated them to be seated, and was 
moving a chair for himself when something seemed to 


440 


Who Laughs Last 

give way; he tottered, uttered a stifled exclamation, 
and would have fallen but for Billy’s arm. His wife 
had him in an instant. “What is it Abraham? 
Hold him up, Billy, or, let him down easily, so!” 

“Lumbago, Ad£la! Ooo-op ! ” 

The bathos of it! The helpless man was enraged 
with himself. “They will say it was a stroke, or some 
foolery. Fetch Mr. Popenjoy, I wish to speak to 
him, for him to see, and hear me; we must not allow 
false and — Oooo-p ! — possibly damaging reports to 
get about. It is nothing in the world but my old 
enemy. I slept in the summer-house this afternoon 
and took a chill. Oooopl ” Which may very well 
have been the cause. Lumbago it was; and when 
Mr. Samuel, more weary and more thankful than he 
had ever been in his life turned up at Hornbeams 
at eight o ’clock, he found his stepmother reinstalled 
as wife and nurse, a gloriously transfigured woman, 
tender and sweet, and as happy as a girl of seventeen 
whose first tiff with her sweetheart has been made up. 

She sailed into the drawing-room, offering her hand 
with a jolly laugh. He took it and held it for a tense, 
mute quarter-minute. 

“ I — I want to say, I want to tell you, I have just 
come from the bank. Popenjoy has shown me what 
you did. I want to thank you.” 

“Don’t, then! Thank me? Whatever for? Look 
here, Sam, we have n’t hit it off exactly. Now I 
have come back to stay. Your father wants me. 
We must make a fresh start. Eh? I ’ll take back 
everything I have ever said. Let us be friends, for 
his sake, eh?” 

He was still holding her hand; he stood over her 
heavy and awkward and weary-eyed, but with a 


Love to the Rescue 441 

better face upon him than she had ever seen mm turn 
to her. 

“You are a good woman, Mrs. Winterbourne — 
well — Adela, then — if you wish it." They stood so, 
looking each in the other’s face, he sorely embarrassed 
by sad old memories of misjudgments, quarrels; the 
woman beaming, overflowing with pardon and good- 
will, at home again. His lip twitched. “She lost 
her chance of making a man of him, that woman, 
whoever she was!” She thought this, and on a 
wave of pity took him impulsively in her arms and 
kissed both his cheeks and sprang back, clapping 
her hands with one of her ringing laughs. “There, 
I have done it ! I told Abraham I would. He did n’t 
believe me, or that you would let me. We have 
made it up at last! Come up and see him. He is 
worrying for you. Billy is with him, but we can 
get nothing out of the boy. He keeps on saying 
that you played a great innings, kept your end up, 
and all that, and worked like a horse. ” 

“Like a donkey, Ad£la! Why, it was he! I never 
thought — ” The big, manly voice grew suddenly 
husky. “But show me up, I ’ll tell my father.” 


THE END 










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